


(Luna)cy

by Pyra_Manix



Category: BnHA, mha, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Canon Divergence, Coming of Age, Endevil's a+parenting, Fighting, Found Family, Gay Izuku Midoriya, He’s learning to control his anger, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Izuku Still Gets OFA, Izuku and Inko get into an argument, I’ll add more tags later, Kidnapping, Multi, Shouto just wants love, Violence, Werewolf AU, Werewolf Inko, Werewolf Izuku, bisexual Shouto Todoroki, clothes rip when you change into a big creature, hopelessly romantic Shouto, izuku and katsuki will kinda get along, izuku gains confidence, izuku has a healthy platonic friendship, mineta gets launched out of the plot, ooc Bakugo at times, the graphic depiction might happen?? Depends on if I can write it, the mature rating is for mentioned nudity (no graphic descriptions), they're werewolves guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyra_Manix/pseuds/Pyra_Manix
Summary: Izuku Midoriya never thought his secret would bite him in the ass like it did.He had gone all his life without having more than a handful of close calls.But, that flew out the window on the day Izuku started the werewolf equivalent of puberty, met another wolf, exposed his secret to his childhood enemy and learned what his mother had been hiding from him for his whole life.Jesus Christ, what else could possibly go wrong?





	1. Every potential disaster has a catalyst, both of mine are loud, blonde, and rude.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey hey folks I’m back with this au! It’s the rewrite of my first attempt and I hope you enjoy it!

When Izuku woke up, everything was fantastic. The sheets felt cool, the blanket was warm, everything was in its place and the _last_ thing on his mind was getting up. But today was Friday, so he didn't have a choice… maybe he could lay down for a while longer?

Apparently not. Izuku’s ears caught the sound of his mother’s footsteps a few seconds before his door swung open, and the woman responsible for bringing him into this world all but skipped into his room, whistling a tune. Inko Midoriya yanked the covers away from her son's form, and sighed when she saw a large black wolf occupying her son's twin sized mattress. The petite woman frowned as she threw the blanket back over her son.

Izuku huffed hotly through his nose, inexplicably bothered by the other werewolf’s presence in his personal space. It was an immediate response, and it surprised him greatly. He had never felt threatened by his mother coming into his room before. Izuku had to get ahold of himself before he let the change overcome him. His bones popped and shifted, his joints reformed seamlessly to fit the desired shape, black fur receded into his skin, and soon he was his _other_ self again. He rolled over, relishing in the feeling of almost entirely stress free joints, the muscles made loose by the process of going from wolf to boy. The entire change had once been excruciatingly painful, but time and acclimation had made the exchange feel as natural as breathing. He sat up, making sure the blanket covered his lap while his mother was still in the room.  

”Izuku, I don’t know why you sleep like that, you barely fit on the bed as a wolf, and I keep warning youㄧ“

”I know,” Izuku yawned and stretched, his back popped a little bit, chasing any stiffness that the changing hadn’t purged. “I remember the warnings, mom, if I mess up the washing machine you’ll skin me.” He said while smiling.

Inko smirked as she rooted around in her son’s drawers, not seeing how Izuku stiffened up at her intrusion of his nightstand. She remembered when that joke had come into being. Izuku had been almost five years old and had just finished his first complete transformation from little boy to wolf pup and back again. Inko had made a joke that if he started to shed enough to clog up the washing machine she’d have to sell all his fur to pay for the repairs.

Izuku only barely remembered back then; they had been in a very rough situation. They were operating on a shoestring budget and could hardly make rent or pay for groceries. It was a period of time where Izuku was desperately waiting for his quirk as well as making the very exerting and painful journey that was a side effect of a young werewolf’s coming of age.

If he wasn’t wailing due to growth pains or the pains of a semi-shift, it was because he had accidentally bit his tongue or the inside of his mouth with his newly grown canine incisors,  or scratched himself badly with claws he didn’t know how to control.

Everything was a balancing act and nothing was certain. Every drop of optimism counted. But thankfully those times were over, and his mom had a less than impressive job working what was supposed to be a nine-to-five in an office building as an over-the-phone sales person for a printer toner company. Sadly, the hours were just horrible. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills and supported the protein-demanding diets needed by two werewolves. Izuku had tried to get spare cash before, dog walking after school or offering yard services to try and lighten the load his mother carried all by herself. He had thought it was a good idea, but his mother wouldn’t allow it, claiming he needed to focus on school for now. He very reluctantly agreed to stop overloading himself- at least until he was in high school.

Izuku was still stretching when a clean pair of black boxer briefs smacked him in the face. He quickly whipped the fabric off his face and glared at the perpetrator with only the smallest inkling of uncharacteristic irritation behind it. His mom smirked again, missing the slight show of hostility and simply told him to get ready because breakfast was waiting.

* * *

 

Izuku groaned as he got up, letting the blanket fall as he put his briefs on. He hadn’t slept very well last night, he had been restless and oversensitive, his skin crawling at the slightest disturbance. His room seemed too bright, even though the only source of light was from a street lamp and that was filtered through a set of dark blue curtains. Every car that drove by had been enough to startle him awake, even the practically nonexistent weight of his pendant, a small medallion of engraved wrought iron, bothered him- another thing that had never happened before. He had felt like he needed to go running, to get his heart racing, to shift and live in the world of his other, wilder half- he could feel the compulsion digging at him like an itch trapped within his bones.

In the end, all he could do was take his pajama pants off and just enjoy a night of sleeping as a large wolf. It wasn’t what his instincts wanted, it wasn’t the primal thrill of a racing heart and fluid sprint that his body was craving; but it was what he got. He couldn’t even attribute the weirdness to the moon cycle as it had been only half waxed last night, so he had no idea what had caused his restlessness. Sleeping in his second form seemed to help, at least a little bit considering the urge seemed to have faded to the back of his mind for now.

And another odd thing was his attitude. Did he just wake up grumpy? Izuku had never felt assaulted when his mom entered his room before, and maybe he was a little bit embarrassed when his mother went through his drawers, but this morning he had felt almost territorial about his space.

 _It was so strange,_ Izuku thought as he buttoned up his middle school’s uniform jacket. He decided he would make sure to try and keep his attitude at bayㄧ he was probably just tired, and it had affected his mood. And then he thought back to the previous night. No matter how much he tried to rationalize it as just a case of werewolf cabin fever he couldn’t bring himself to dismiss it.

All his life, he had never felt the urge to shift that strongly, even the full moon’s pull was less than what he had experienced last night. The whole ‘slave to every full moon’ part of werewolf mythology was just a myth, at most the urge to shift was like an instinct, persistent but manageable. Unless it was some odd lunar event, werewolves had evolved past forced shifting outside of growing into their wolf as toddlers. He buttoned the last button, cursing a little bit as he almost got his pendants leather cord stuck in the buttonhole.  

Izuku’s pendant was one of the most important things he owned; if he snapped the already thinning cord, he’d have no way to wear it until he got a new one. The mere thought of it made his scalp itch. A pendant wasn’t just a piece of jewelry after allㄧ his mother had taught him to treat his pendant like it carried a piece of his soul. She polished her own pendant regularly and was never seen without it. That kind of thing carried over onto him. Hers, though,  was oval shaped and made entirely of polished iron. It was engraved with a full moon and a profile of a howling she-wolf’s head was silhouetted in the center. On the back was the Norse lettering that read, ‘Moon Song.’

Izuku received his own pendant on his fifth birthday, a few days after he had managed to make four complete transformations without the instinctual guidance from the full moon. If he were to make a circle with his index finger and his thumb, the pendant would fit perfectly inside the circle. The disc that made up his pendant was made of wrought iron, polished in some places and blackened or textured in others to give depth to the scene depicted on it. He knew the design by heart: a seaside cliff under a mostly clear night sky with a simple wolf depicted perched precariously close to the edge of the cliff, head tilted back in a howl. A crescent moon was visible behind a dark cloud, the way the cloud was shaped suggested that its dark mass was being moved by the force of the wolf’s song. And along the bottom right half, following the curvature of the pendant, was Izuku’s second name.

_ljóss fœra_

Light Bringer.

Second names were supposed to hold some kind of prophetic meaning; at least that’s what his mom had said when she’d given the pendant to him. He had no idea what his second name entailed, but it had to be something vital considering the way she had etched its importance in his skull, so he made sure to take care of it. No being except for Izuku, his mother and the ironsmith who had crafted the piece had laid hands on it, and that was fine with Izuku.

_It’s not like He wanted someone touching what was supposedly a part of soul._

Izuku looked himself over in his mirror. He looked pretty rough- he’d had a hard month. The amount of homework assignments at school had reached an all time high, which kept him exhausted and his tormentors at school had gotten more aggressive, which made his self esteem plummet even farther, which had lead to being forced to cancel his haircut appointment last week due to the small case of depressive narcolepsy that came with lack of sleep and harassment.

He would just have to work with what he had. He pulled a hair tie from his dresser drawer and tied his hair back as best he could. The ponytail didn’t hold very much, leaving the rest to fall and reframe his face. It looked more like a rabbit tail than anything else, but it would keep the majority of his hair off his neck. He tucked his pendant under his jacket, uniform,  and his undershirt, feeling most comfortable when he could feel the warm metal on his skin. Thank god the bags under his eyes had faded somewhat, he didn’t want to worry his mother by looking like a zombie. He gave himself a bright smile and immediately frowned again when he saw how his canine incisors looked.

His canine teeth had always been a little bigger than the average person's, just barely a noticeable size difference from a non quirk mutated human, but they still didn’t look like they belonged in a quirkless person’s mouth. His canines were almost at their full size now, four sharp points in his mouth, two on the top row and two on the bottom, but his mom often took him to get them ground down after he bit a kid out of self defense back in elementary school… not that she knew it was self defense.

He hated getting his teeth blunted, it made him feel even more defenseless than being quirkless, and then there's the part where it hurts like hell. Maybe he could keep his mom off the topic for a while longer. It's not like he went annually, so he just had to keep her distracted from the thought of going to the dentist any time soon. Yeah, he could definitely do that. He could. Probably. Not.

Izuku made his way to the kitchen and dining room, his mother was already eating, so she must be in somewhat of a hurry. Izuku took his seat and thanked his mother for the meal before he began to eat heartily. His mom took one look at him and then went back to stirring her coffee.

“Your teeth have grown in again I see.” she drawled without looking up.

_Damn._

Izuku smiled sheepishly, fully showing off the two pairs of sharp teeth. “What? Really?” He laughed and tried to look surprised, “I mean I didn’t even notice so they can’t be _that_ long right?” His mother put her spoon down and gave him a look that said he wasn’t as good an actor that he thought he was.

Izuku dropped his act and groaned, “Mom, _please._ As your beloved child, I’m begging you, _please_ don't make me get them filed down.” He pleaded. His mother sighed, and Izuku knew he was in for another long back and forth conversation about keeping the big secret.

“Izuku-”

“Wait, wait, pleaseㄧ just hear me out,” Izuku scrambled to find an argument that would stick. “It really hurts, mom, and I’m older now, it’s been years since the whole biting thing! It’ll save money, so you can stop working weekends… I’ll do anything! Just, _please,_ can we be done with the filing?” He even went full out and tried to pull his puppy dog eyes.

His mom looked like she was going to argue for maybe ten seconds before she got a look in her eye that Izuku didn’t like. “You want to stop getting your teeth filed? Fine, but you have to tell me why you bit that boy.”

Izuku stiffened up.

He remembers the reason, of course he does. One of his elementary school bullies had been trying to push him into the small river that wound through the local park on a class field trip. He had felt so helpless and his mind had been screaming at him to stop what was happening before he got hurt. He hadn’t known how to swim back then, which only fueled his fear, and he had ended up biting the bully’s arm. He had been in so much trouble when he got home, but tattling only got him _more_ trouble from his peers at school. He’d take being grounded over getting hurt at school more.

Izuku scratched his arm nervously. Might as well save himself some pain from the dentist, it’s not like his mom could call out a kid who he barely remembered after all these years.

“Some kid tried to push me into the river as a joke that day. I was just scared that I’d drown, and he was shoving me closer and closer to the water, so I couldn’t get away, and I bit him. At least that’s how I remember it.” He wasn’t looking at his mom anymore, instead choosing to focus on the food remaining on his plate. “Is that a good enough reason?”

“I–“ Inko cut herself off, rerouted her response. “Yes, I-I’ll cancel your future appointments…” His mother looked like she wanted to apologize for something.

“Thanks.” He kept eating, though it wasn’t as enthusiastic as before.

“I’m... Izuku,” Inko set her cup of coffee down.  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Izuku had to acknowledge his mother with a muffled questioning sound due to his mouth being full.

“You’ll- you _are_ getting older and that comes with certain changes and urgesㄧ“ She caught the weird face her son was making, “Oh, will you stop giving me that face? Honestly, I’m your mother! It’s my job to tell you these things.”

Izuku grimaced. His Sex Ed teacher had told him enough about hormones and bunch of other really embarrassing stuff- he really didn’t want to have this conversation with his mother. “Mom... if this is a sex talkㄧ“

“Izuku! This is _not a sex talk!_ Good lordㄧ no! I’m talking about what our people call the Growing. You’re old enough now that things are going to start to feel differently, you’re going to want to react to things aggressively. Your high school years are going to be difficult, Izuku. When I was your age, I was already challenging the neighborhood kids to fist fights and all sorts of races. You’ll become competitive and you’re _definitely_ going to start to try and build a social group that’s trustworthy enough to rely on. You’ll probably start posturing to try and impress girls-“

Izuku cringed minutelyㄧ that was seriously _not_ gonna happen, considering his preferences. Izuku didn’t blame his mom for not knowingㄧ it’s not like he wanted her to know. He was still questioning himself, and he wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her yet. For the past two years he had been on the fence about what he liked. He had thought for a while that he was possibly pansexual or maybe bisexual just because he thought he had to have girls in his options just in case, but lately he’d been undeniably falling heavily towards boys.

He didn’t really feel attracted to girls like his mother thought he was, but really, it wasn’t her fault that she had that impression, as Izuku had never given her any reason to think otherwise. He was just on a kind of scary journey of self discovery and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to add his mother to the stress of it.

Izuku tried to cover his sexuality crisis with a hopefully natural-looking shiver as he listened to his mother continue, passing the entire thing off like he was cold.

“ㄧand most importantly, your first instinct when confronted is going to be to wolf out and I need you to keep a lid on it. Going wolf out there can lead to disaster, Izuku.” His mother’s voice had turned grave. It looked like she was about to say something else, but her phone alarm went off.

“Ohㄧ dammit, not now!” She was frantic, “we’ll have to finish this conversation tonight, I can’t be late for work! I’m sorry, honey.”

Izuku just shook his head and tried to smile as his mother hurried to get her things and rush out of the house. His mom’s boss was absolutely ruthlessㄧ a tardy was equivalent to a dock in pay, and while they weren’t destitute, he knew that they were on a budget that didn’t allow much wiggle room. He could ask his questions later… He didn’t want to overwhelm his mom.

 _Besides_ , he told himself as his mother disappeared out the front door, _it sounds like puberty, he can handle that right?_

* * *

  
Wrong. In no universe would he be able to handle this.

He had gotten all of his things together and taken a step out the door, only to run into the very annoying landlady that owned the small apartment building. He didn’t like the round woman on a good day, so when he accidentally shoulder checked her, all hell just about broke loose.

“Excuse you!” The landlady, Ms. Shura, had a voice like a cheap diner _‘Sweet ‘n Low’_ alternative sugarㄧ sickly sweet one second and then an overpoweringly bad after taste.

Izuku bowed low and tried to apologize.

“Oh, Mrs. Shura! I’m very sorry, I wasn’t paying attenㄧ“

The grumpy woman only gave a shrill huff that made Izuku want to cover his ears.

“I swear, you and your mother will be the end of me!” She fanned herself, as if Izuku and his mother’s mere mention caused her distress, before her face went stern. “I trust rent will be _on time_ this month? Or will I finally have the privilege of ousting the both of you from my building?”

Izuku grit his teeth to keep from growling- _growling, of all things, this coming of age crap was going to get him into trouble_ ㄧ and wrinkled his nose. He could smell the chemicals from a false scent- probably the overly expensive French perfume that Ms. Shura liked to wear in copious amounts.

It was completely not worth its price, at least in Izuku’s opinion. Why spend a month's worth of rent money on a perfume that smells like the school’s chem lab?

“You’ll get your money,” he bit out. “My mom has been working ‘til the last train _all week_ to get the rent money.”

Izuku wanted Ms. Shura to really understand what her over inflated rent price put her tenants through, for her to get how Izuku had been leaving less than great dinners out for his mom because she didn’t get home until eleven at night and he couldn’t wait for her without nodding off the next day at school. But all she did was laugh humorlessly.

“I bet your mother wishes she had a husband to help her, but instead all she has is a child to feed.”

 _This,_ this _was why he hated Ms. Shura_. Ever since she had learned that his mother had never been married, and thus meaning that he had been born out of wedlock, she had begun to go out of her way to try and bully them out of the apartment.

“I’m going to be late for school,” Izuku ground out as he bid the rude woman goodbye, choosing his hellish school life over the landlady’s crude company.

He’d have to pick up the pace a little if he wanted to beat morning sidewalk traffic.

* * *

 

Izuku made it to school (and his class) with only seconds to spare before the bell. He hurried to his seat… but came up short. There was a girl in his seat, with her left ankle resting on her right thigh in dominant body language, her figure was relaxed, her facial expression was calm, though the upturn of her lips spoke of confidence and capability. Her uniform looked like it had been cannibalized. The red scarf that typically went with the female uniform was nowhere to be seen, the collar was torn, and bike shorts went to the girl’s mid thigh under a pleated skirt with holes at the hem. _Looks like someone didn’t like the uniform_ , Izuku observed.

But most importantly, there was a thick choker on her neck that looked like one of the fashionable collars that were popular in Europe. However, instead of a charm hanging from the choker, she had a disc of ironㄧ it looked like a dog tag, but Izuku knew _exactly_ what it was.

Izuku immediately knew what this girl was. He didn’t even need the familiar smell of earth and muskㄧ though she did cover it well with the synthetic smell of flowers and jasmineㄧ as soon as his emerald gaze met with the girl’s electric blue stare, she smirked, and almost too fast to comprehend, _her eyes flashed a brilliant gold._

“Hey, dude, sorry I got here late.” Her diamond blonde hair was in a high ponytail, but it was long enough to reach the floor while she was seated, highlighted with electric blue at the ends and tips of her bangs.

“I had to take a seat, and, well, I had a good feeling this seat would lead me to someone interesting,” her lilting accent was almost bursting with mischievous intent. She was definitely foreign, and though her Japanese was pretty good, it was drenched in an accent that Izuku had never heard before. She tilted her head and her swooping bangs swung over her right eye. “I was _not_ disappointed. What’s up cousin?”

She was a wolf, just like him. And she was _challenging_ him. This whole charade of needing a seat and the flash of gold in her eyes, all of it was her way of daring him to make a fuss.

But someone else beat him to the punch. The class’s wind quirk user jerked her head around to stare at the new girl. Hina Kaze, a girl with wild silver hair that seemed to be caught in a whirlwind all hours of the day was easily excited and overly zealous in _everything_ that she did.

So of course she had something to say now.

“Aoi-chan! You can’t seriously be related to a crippled loser like Deku!” She whined in a high pitch tone. Izuku felt something at the back of his mind twitch. What had he ever done to Hina to make her think so lowly of him? And he wasn’t crippled, for _God’s_ sake.

The girl, ‘Aoi-chan’, seemed completely unamused. She opened her mouth to say something, but the teacher walked in and called for everyone to be seated. Izuku stayed standing since _his_ desk had been taken by this girl that he had _never seen before._

“Alright, everyone. We have a new student, come on up and introduce yourself.” The teacher drawled, not really interested in what was going on.

‘Aoi-chan’ winked at him and got up, taking her messenger bag with her. Izuku noticed he was wrong about the black points, it wasn’t a clip, but a black hair ribbon, it was tied over her ponytail in a large bow. While a few of the teens were busy watching how the girls insanely long ponytail swung behind her, just long enough to meet the hem of her uniform skirt, the rest were astonished by the sense of novelty this girl brought with her. Izuku was focused on taking his seat back. He pulled a journal out and got ready to take notes on this… was it an over exaggeration to call her an usurper? She felt like an _invader_..

The sound of chalk striking the black board is what drew his attention back to the girl. She was having to look at a piece of paper before she wrote every character of her name, further proving that she was foreign. Her full name turned out to be- _holy shit._ The sheer _amount_ of single letter characters was mind-boggling! How would you even pronounce that?

 _“_ Alrighty!” The girl clapped her hands once to regain attention from the room.

“My name is Aoife Ó Donnabháin! I’ll spell the pronunciation out so you guys can remember itㄧ ‘Ow-fee’ ‘Oh-don-uh-van’. Also, I’d prefer to keep honorifics to a minimumㄧ I’m just Aoife, so please don’t add on to it.” She spoke slowly as she wrote it out, again using the reference paper. When she was done, she sat the chalk down and looked back at her audience.

“Anyone have questions?”

Half the room raised their hands.

_“Where are you from?!”_

“Waterford, Ireland, though my family has been all over the place because my Dad is in the army. I’ve lived in the U.K. for three years, Germany for two, and three years in Ireland, where I was actually born before we first moved, but I just left America where we’ve been the longest, five years.”

 _“You called Midoriya your cousin_ ㄧ _is that for real?”_

Izuku stiffened as he felt the room refocus onto him. _Stop staring- He hadn’t done anything._

Aoife just shrugged, as composed as ever. “Ever hear of the Romani people? Perfect strangers connected by one thing, a single thing big enough to garner considering anyone involved as family. It’s a lot like thatㄧ isn’t it, _cousin?_ ” She was looking right at him, tapping the iron disc that Izuku _knew_ had to be her pendant.

Izuku pulled his best poker face, a terrible attempt by anyone’s account, and shrugged.

“I-I really don’t know what you’re talking aboㄧ“

There was the smell of melted sugar and caramel, disgustingly sweet and burnt, accompanied with a barrage of firecracker explosions. “Shut the fuck up, Deku, I’m sick of hearing your stupid voice.” The voice of Katsuki Bakugou ground against his ears and set instinctive wariness into his gut.

Izuku’s mouth clicked shut and his muscles tightenedㄧ that feeling in the back of his mind was getting restless. The teacher, like always, was content to do _absolutely nothing_ to stop Bakugou.

Aoife had a sour look on her face, “What’s got your panties in such a twist this early in the morning?”

Bakugou’s face contorted into rage and his palms began to smoke, the smell of burning caramel clogged the air. “Who the fuck do you think you are, you D-listingㄧ“

Aoife gave a derisive snort, “I’m whoever the hell I say I am. You must be the firecracker kid everyone gets so scared of.”

Katsuki looked like he was about to explode. “You better hope your quirk is strong enough to save your ass after class, ‘cause I’llㄧ”

“You’ll what?” The new girl asked with faux curiosity, “chase me down and beat me up? Well,” the girl dug in her school bag and produced a small pencil top eraser, “you should know what you’ll be chasing.” She drew her arm back, the eraser in her hand beginning to glow blue, and what looked like blue electricity started to jump up and down her arm. She didn’t hesitate to throw the piece of rubber- and when it separated from her hand, there was an audible _SNAP!_ of energy as the sparking eraser shot like a speeding blue bullet.

It hit Bakugou’s desk and ricocheted off, bouncing off walls and desks. Some students shrieked as the projectile flew around (Izuku himself closed his journal and brought it up to shield his face just in time to save himself from the eraser’s wrath), but after about thirty seconds the object bounced harmlessly off of Bakugou’s chest and hit the floor.

Bakugo had murder in his eyes as he observed the girl at the front of class. When no one else asked any questions she decided she was done standing up there apparently, because she started looking for a seat. She found the seat right behind Izuku and sat there with a smirk. Izuku groaned internally. He just wanted today to be over.

* * *

 

The first half of the day was full of hierarchical confusion, the larger portion of the school having heard about Bakugou getting shown up. A great many people weren’t sure who they wanted to side withㄧ the guy who had basically been the school tyrant for years, or this new girl and her impressive looking quirk.

Despite the events that had taken place just hours ago, Izuku was fully prepared to just ignore the foreign female werewolf and go to his usual place for lunch. When the lunch bell rang, Izuku made to stand up, but Aoife cut him short by perching herself on his desk and setting a hand down on the cheap pre-made lunch he had bought himself on his way to school that morning. Izuku narrowed his eyes at the obstruction, but blanched when Aoife tapped her pointer finger against the plastic lid of his lunch, a shock of azure energy racing up the digit in a silent show of power.

Aoife smiled sharply when Izuku finally made eye contact with her. “Hey, friend! We need to talk.”

Izuku groaned. “No, we really don’t. Please stop holding my lunch hostage and _just let me leave_.” Izuku didn’t have much time until Katsuki came back to eat lunch in the classroom with his friends, and he’d really rather not be here when they show up.

Aoife saw him glance towards the door and she sneered. “You’re not _scared,_ are you?”

Izuku sat up abruptly, his chair screeching as he stood. “Yes, Aoife, I am, because being seen in _here_ with _you_ is going to _very likely get me murdered_.”

Aoife swung her legs and scowled. “That tornado hair girl is nothing to worry about, I know she was rude butㄧ“

Izuku blinked, she had lost him entirely. “Tornado haiㄧ you mean _Hina?_ God no, I’m not afraid of her, she couldn’t hurt a bug. I’m talking about Katsukiㄧ“

The door slammed open and Bakugou Katsuki’s rage-filled stance was the first thing Izuku saw. Izuku jolted up and snatched up his bag while watching Katsuki’s typical group filter into the room with the new addition of Hina Kaze. _What was she doing tagging along with Katsuki?_

It didn’t matter- Izuku jerked his lunch out from under Aoife’s hand and took a half step away.

“K-Katsuki, I was justㄧ“ Izuku was cut off by Katsuki’s murderous glare.

“Get the fuck out of my lunch spot, Dekuㄧ I’m not in the mood to hear you cry like a little bitch.”

Izuku hunched over, biting his lip to keep a retort back. But he should have used the opportunity to just _leave_ because Katsuki was out for blood today. He stormed past Izuku and over to Aoife, a hand raised and smokingㄧ

Izuku moved before he could think.

He dropped his backpack, and with his now-free hand, he grabbed Katsuki’s wrist, keeping him from hitting the strange girl. Hina, her cold grey eyes watched what was happening as she hurried to drag Aoife of the desk and keep her back.

Katsuki’s next move was too fast for Izuku to track, an explosive punch met his chest with enough force to send him smacking against the wall of the classroom with a hole branded into his uniform, the collar of his uniform was blackened and a large chunk of the left breast of the black jacket was gone and the same section of the white undershirt along with it. His pendant was on full display, and Hina seemed to lock her ever curious gaze on it, like a raccoon who had found something pretty to snatch.

Izuku cried out with a wheeze as he hunched over, pressing a hand to his burned chest instinctively, though it only caused him more pain. Katsuki grabbed Izuku by his chin and jerked his face up, Izuku’s eyes almost glowed a toxic green, well on their way to becoming a burning gold. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. All Izuku had wanted was a quiet Friday that would lead to a nice weekend. But instead he had gotten in the middle of a damn territory war between another werewolf and the self made king of the middle school.

Izuku tried to push his aggressor away, but Katsuki stood firmㄧ he even went so far as to take the lunch Izuku had managed to keep ahold of from his hands. Izuku’s eyes widened and he tried to escape his captors graspㄧ _he couldn’t afford to replace another uniform, his mom could teach him to fix a messed up collar but he couldn’t fix stains_ \- Izuku didn’t even want to _think_ about the extra hours his mom would have to work to pay for a new uniform. Katsuki had done this before, and he had a name for it.

He called it _garbage canning._

Izuku managed to get out of Katsuki’s grip, but the ash blonde only slammed him back again. This time the explosive boy didn’t hesitate to tip the food container onto his torso. Izuku struggled harder, yelling for the bullies to stop it! He distantly heard Aoife yelling threats to tell the principal at Bakugou, but that didn’t stop the first of Katsuki’s lackies from smearing the food into his clothes.

“Hey, Fingers, hand me your juice,” the blonde bastard holding Izuku down held his hand out for the can of juice, which his friend handed to him using his elongated fingers after popping open the top of the can. Aoife yelled again for them to stop, but she couldn’t seem to be able to move very well, _and wasn’t Hina a wind quirk user? How was she keeping Aoife back?_ Izuku started to _thrash_ , his ponytail fell out and his hair fell into his eyes, keeping him from accurately _seeing his assault._ The freckled boy gasped in shock when the cold drink was poured into his green hair.

Katsuki threw Izuku down and stood tall, proud of his work as he poured the remainder of the beverage onto any clean part of Izuku’s uniform.  He even took it a step further by adding insult to injury. “Worthless Deku, you can’t even protect yourself, and you want to be a hero? What a joke. You should just disappear and save everyone the embarrassment of watching you fail so hard.” Katsuki gave a swift kick to Izuku’s stomach, the smaller boy groaned from the impact, a puddle of pomegranate blueberry juice forming under his head, the bright redness of the juice looking just like fresh blood.

Izuku gritted his teeth as he listened to the triumphant laughs of the kids standing above him. The boy with extending fingers cackled as he took out his phone, Izuku heard the barely audible, rapidly repeated shutterclick sound of the phones camera, anger and embarrassment filled Izuku to his core.

_If Katsuki knew the truth would things be different? Would he be his equal? His attack dog like one of his ‘friends’? A monster? Or would he be just another extra in the action movie Katsuki thinks his life is?_

Izuku could feel his heartbeat losing its rhythm as more shutter clicks told him that his tormentors weren’t done catching his humiliation on camera. Izuku clenched his fist as unfamiliar rage built in his soul, and he started to put weight on the arm that was under him, propping himself up.

Katsuki looked down, and his breath hitched with surprise when he saw the look on his victim’s face.

Glaring up at him from under a wet fringe of green curls were yellow eyes, like two molten gold coins. Eyes that burned with something dangerous. Katsuki felt _trapped_ by that look, like he was in the biting reach of a feral animal. He saw a bead of red juice collect near the green haired boy’s eyebrow, and when it fell, it left a red trail down Izuku’s face, meeting the corner of his alarming eyes and continuing to fall, like a ruby tear.

 _Like blood._ Katsuki’s imagination provided a grim image. The ash blonde found himself holding his breath as the boy on the ground started to speak.

 _“Get. Away from me.”_ Izuku seethed, and against all better judgement, that’s exactly what Katsuki did. He took a half step back, but that was more than enough for Izuku. He jumped up and shoved Katsuki back with a strength Katsuki wasn’t aware the smaller boy possessed.

Izuku snatched his backpack up and did Aoife the favor of throwing the empty juice can at Hina as he fled the room, dripping red juice down the tiled hallway. The silver haired girl let out a high shriek, and her weird quirk lost its effect. Aoife stepped away and followed Izuku’s retreating back

* * *

 

Izuku was sprinting down the halls, dodging people and slipping between obstructions. The itch from this morning was rising back to the forefront of his mind, replacing his personality with the need to return Katsuki’s cruelty. He felt like he was losing himself to his emotions. He’d been embarrassed by Katsuki before, he’d been mad at the older boy before, but he’d never felt the need to react this violently. _Reaction…_ no, what Izuku wanted was _retaliation._ Izuku wanted _Katsuki_ to feel the pain of burned skin, what it was like to go home to an empty house smelling like a cafeteria trash can, for his stupid superiority complex to drown in the _loneliness_ Izuku dealt with _daily_ because he went to a school where everyone _hated and belittled him._

 _No one to tell you it’s okay, because your mom works late almost every night, and she’s the only person on the whole fucking planet who cares._ Izuku’s eyes started to water. His sight was so blurred that he barely dodged the girls from the tennis club carrying boxes down the hallway.

_No one to tell you not to listen to what people say. That they only tell you to go die because they’ve run out of other horrible things to say._

He was drowning in a toxic mixture of anger and sadness, being dragged under the waves of desperation by his own personal demons. He wanted to hit Katsuki for once, but at the same time he didn’t. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, nor wish this loneliness into someone else’s life but at the same time he wanted his tormentors to know what they were putting him through. _He just wanted it to stop! He wanted to live happily, even for just a little while._

He made it to the front of the school andalmost tripped over the dropping ledge in the floor, stumbling to his shoe locker. Izuku recovered, leaning heavily against the metal locker unit. He wrestled with the combination before a savage sound crawled up his throat. He jerked the combination dial down sharply, the sound of rending metal ground against his ears as the inner locking mechanism was wrenched apart. He was too disoriented to be shocked at himself for breaking the locker.

 _God everything is getting so loud!_ Everything was louder than us should have been, even his own thoughts threatened to deafen him. He buried the bone deep disturbance down under his need to just get out of the school. He would handle the repercussions of skipping later. He was so busy scrambling to get his school shoes off and his red high top combat boot hybrids on that he almost missed the encroaching smell of burnt sugar.

Katsuki had probably intended to get ahold of him for daring to push him, to finish what he had started. Or maybe it was to try and catch Aoife, even though she was nowhere to be seen, either way Izuku didn’t care. The savage itch surged back to the surface and all he knew was that if the older teen got any closer to him, they would both get hurt.

“Deku what the fuㄧ“

 _“Don’t call me that!”_ Izuku seethed, his words dripping malice. He must’ve been possessed by that itch, because his almost fever-blind mind seemed to rationalize his next move. He sent the side of his clenched fist slamming against his already degraded locker door, the impact leaving a shallow dent in the metal.

Katsuki took a small step back with wide eyes, he clearly wasn’t expecting that. Izuku’s heart was beginning to pound in his chest, like a thunderstorm powered by this new urge, the sound filled his ears with the rushing of his blood.

“Leave me _alone-gh!”_ Izuku was cut off mid sentence by a sharp impact that seemed to originate from the inside of his ribs. The shorter boy tried to get a hand hold on his locker to keep him steady, but he still stumbled back. Izuku could feel himself slowly slipping under the waves that made up the bottomless foreign urge. He didn’t trust himself to keep from acting on the temptation of showing the blonde boy what consequences he should have suffered for being such an ass to everyone around him. It wasn’t his place to act as the judge, he knew that, but the feeling rising up to choke him would make it easy to forget.

So he made the decision to cut himself from the situation, while the choice was still his to make. He dug his fingers into his backpack straps and ran to entrance, bursting through the doors and sprinting across the courtyard. The gate that was supposed to keep students in was, of course, shut since the day wasn’t over. Izuku, acting entirely on the need to get away, found himself able to leap up, and snag the top of the gate with his hands. A desperate kind of power fueled his muscles as he used the upper body strength he didn’t know he had to haul himself over the ledge of the gate, his leg kicked and missed a few times as he tried to swing over the ledge. A flash of sparking blue alerted him to Aoife doing something very similar, though she decided to just clear the cement wall with a single quirk powered jump. Izuku huffed and swung his leg over one more time, this time he got it right, and he tried, very unsuccessfully to land on the other side of the gate with some semblance of the grace the white haired girl had. Izuku looked back and saw that Aoife had powered down and started running in the opposite direction he needed to go.  
  
_He didn’t have time to keep a stranger in check, not when he felt like he was dying._  
  
Izuku was so busy running in the direction of his own house that he didn’t see that Katsuki had followed him out to the courtyard, visibly shaking with rage.

* * *

 

Bakugou Katsuki was _furious._ He was stomping down the street while searching for the damn nerd and that foreign bitch, technically he couldn’t follow them at first, because it would count as skipping school, and that would mark his record, dooming his future as a UA student. So, he had to go to the main office to get permission to leave school for the day under the fake excuse that he had seen the nerd get sick, and he had the younger boy waiting by the school entry hall. He had said he was going to take him home. The lie had almost tased sour in his mouth, the idea of being associated with helping the nerd wasn’t pleasant to Katsuki, but he _needed_ to know what the _fuck_ he had just witnessed. That fucking bastard was supposed to be _quirkless!_ If Izuku fucking Midoriya had been lying to him all these years, _making fun of him_ , he was going to _kill_ that fucker!

Katsuki was smart enough to keep a spare change of clothes in his locker, nothing special just a black t-shirt, a graphic designed hoodie and some jeans but it would work. He didn’t want to risk messing up his uniform over something as stupid as dealing with Deku and some bitch from overseas.

The day had grown dimmer, a blanket of clouds shrouding over the sun and turning the world gray, a slight chill had come into the air as company to the cloud cover.

Katsuki knew he was a good distance behind the object of his rage, they had at least a thirty minute head start on him. Katsuki was more focused on finding Deku, the foreigner could wait. The blonde boy was maybe two blocks away from the nerds house anyway, he would get his answers soon enough.

He saw a tipped trash can outside the the entirely unimpressive apartment building that the Midoriya’s lived in. ‘ _Unimpressive’_ might’ve been an understatement, the place was a shithole. The stairs were rickety as Katsuki climbed up them, the bolts that were supposed to hold them securely squeaked in their settings and it made Katsuki slightly nervous about being on them at all.

Katsuki managed to make it to the second floor without the stairs giving out, something that he deemed worthy of being a miracle. He walked down the down the landing and kept an eye out for the Midoriya nameplate that would be riveted to the doorframe of the correct apartment.

He didn’t even make it to the end of the landing before a door behind him burst open. Katsuki spun and saw Izuku in cargo pants and a red hoodie sprinting to the stairs with his obnoxiously yellow backpack slung over his shoulder. Katsuki ran to the door he had come out of; there was an obvious place on the doorframe where a nameplate had been, but it probably fell off some time ago. He swore and started to chase the fucker who he could now see was wearing a damn medical mask.

Something kept Katsuki from yelling out, like on some level he knew that he would never learn the truth if Izuku knew he was being followed. So, he let Izuku have a thirty second head start, and, as soon as the time ended, he started to sprint after the stumbling boy in the red hoodie.

* * *

 

Katsuki watched Izuku’s hunched form from across the traincar. When he had boarded the train, he sent his mom a message that he would be staying the weekend at a friends house to excuse his absence while he hunted for the truth he wanted so desperately. He was close to the answer, he _knew_ he was close, he could almost fucking _taste it_! Izuku hadn’t moved from his spot on the right most side of the traincar, except to hunch over every so often and groan. The green haired boy hadn’t seemed to notice Katsuki on the train yet, which was good for his plan.

Katsuki had managed to get a hold of a hoodie from the train stations lost and found, it stank like cigarettes and booze but it would keep his hair covered and serve as a lame ass disguise.

The blonde kept one eye on his target for another forty minutes before the red hoodie clad boy got off the train, with Katsuki following close behind. As soon as Izuku got out of the crowd he started a dead sprint in a seemingly random direction. Katsuki swore he had to put everything into his legs just to keep up with the fucker he was following. W _hen did that bastard get so fast?_

Katsuki had never been this far from his hometown, but he recognized this place from a news article from class, it was on the edge of some nature reserve, for black foxes or some shit. The whole mountain was privately owned by some filthy rich people.

The fog had only thickened here, it was hard to see anything past ten feet, and all Katsuki could smell was wet earth and the disgusting dampness of the borrowed hoodie. Pretty soon Deku started to stumble, like he was incapable of keeping his balance for more than a minute at a time. Katsuki slowed to a jog when he saw how close they were getting to the fence line, there was no way Deku had the balls to trespass on private property.

Wrong. Katsuki gawked when he saw the scrawny boy started to climb the fence before he noticed a hole in the mesh wire and opted to go through the easier opening. Katsuki couldn’t believe he was considering ruining his perfect record just to follow some nerd into the woods. But, the cold metal of the fence went unnoticed as Katsuki made his choice, disappearing into the fog and foliage.

* * *

 

A storm was rolling in, the distant roar of thunder put Katsuki on edge as he followed the forest path to the best of his ability, the fog had condensed, lowering his visibility to maybe two feet in front of himself, even with his phones flashlight.

He was beginning to curse himself for being dumb enough to care about what the nerd was doing. Why had he come all the way out here when he could have just ambushed him at his house the next day? _Brilliant gold eyes, and a growl-like rasp, metal bending under his fist–_ Katsuki shivered violently, no, this couldn’t be allowed to wait. He wanted his answers right the fuck now, he just wished he didn’t have to slink around like Nancy Drew in a gross fucking hoodie in these creepy fucking woods to get what he wanted.

A twig snapped somewhere to his right and Katsuki almost jumped a foot in the air when he shone his phone light at the ground and saw something red under a bush. Although he would never admit it, his heart almost stopped. But another stuttered step revealed that it was just the fucking hoodie that the nerd was wearing on the train. Katsuki flexed his free hand, attempting to coax a small firecracker explosion from his palm to calm his nerves, but the air was damp and chilly, not even a nervous sweat was present on his hands. But he wasn’t _defenseless_ Bakugou Katsuki was _never_ defenseless, he’d…. he’d figure something out if push came to shove. Yeah, no sweat, he was fine.

A few feet further and the blonde saw a red shoe, the same lame off brand shoes Deku was always so proud of. _Had it fallen off while Deku was running? Had he fallen and lost his shoe?_

In the low branches of another bush was a white shirt, torn and dirty, like something had taken claws to the fabric, shredding the torso from seam to seam. Katsuki started to shake imperceptibly, this was getting out of hand. _Was Deku stripping?_ No that didn’t make sense, Katsuki’s rational mind spoke up, the shirt was in terrible shape, almost like the wearer couldn’t get it off fast enough. Just what the fuck had he stumbled onto?

A low keening startled Katsuki so terribly he dropped his phone and spun around frantically, falling to his ass while he rushed to examine the filmy grey expanse around him. His heart began to jackrabbit within his chest, his stomach churning with nerves. _That could’ve been Deku,_ he thought as he hurried to pick up his phone, and the light that came with it. _Deku, or something_ else.

Katsuki shakily got to his feet, his knees felt weak and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The sky had darkened considerably, Katsuki hadn’t even noticed the change in lighting. A crash of thunder shook Katsuki to his core, he screamed loudly but choked it down by biting his his tongue. Embarrassed rage replaced fear, and soon he was crashing into the undergrowth, but a thin sound filled the air just as the first of a thousand raindrops began to fall. He stopped short.

The first sound was answered by another, this one much closer and _not the same_. The first sound, a kind of crying howl, had been purely animalistic but the second one? That sounded like Deku screaming, but something was wrong with his voice– it wasn’t human not really, something wasn’t right he had to get out of these woods immediately.

Thundering steps sounding in the undergrowth to Katsuki’s left, and all Katsuki saw before his world went dark and tilted, was the body of a monster with two familiar eyes, two emerald eyes, blended with gold.

 


	2. Put an animal in a corner, but don’t cry when it bites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit y’all it’s been ages- if anyone here is one of the people who liked the first chapter and got pissed when the fic seemingly died IM SO SORRY 
> 
> I kept hitting ruts, and life got in the way and tbh I probably rerouted the plot four times since chap one went up.   
> To make up for it, have 8000+ words

Izuku sat up with a shriek as freezing cold water hit his face. He swung his arms around before he scrambled to push the wet hair from his eyes. When he cleared his vision he saw none other than the girl that indirectly got him into this mess standing in front of him with a sneer on her face and a water canteen in her hands. His brain took a second to reboot everything from the day before: school, new girl, fight, brain going feral, about half of a train ride, a blinding agony that he couldn’t really place on his half constructed timeline, and then absolutely no details past that.

_ “Aoife.” _ Izuku growled out, shivering due to the cold water and dank weather. It was still relatively overcast, though the fog had reduced drastically. The girl Izuku was currently wishing every possible inconvenience on was dressed in an oversized purple sweater that reached her mid thigh and black leggings with her hair in a long braid, but he noticed small twigs and leaves tangled in and dirt on her skin– Izuku startled and hurried to look down at himself with an embarrassed squeak. 

The only thing covering his modesty was his hoodie laying across his lap, although there was so much dried mud everywhere that he could only see patches of bright red. His skin was in a similar state, much worse than Aoife. Other than that all he wore was the iron pendant around his neck. 

Izuku started to stammer, but his panic was cut short by his backpack hitting him square in the face. Aoife had thrown it at him to, most likely, shut him up. He quickly shook his head violently, shaking the water and fresh mud off his face. With how everything else was going, it was no real surprise to him that his backpack was dirty too.

“Sorry about the water– you were totally comatose dude, but you need to get dressed. We have to get out of here before people start looking into the racket you made last night,” she scolded. “And what kind of childhood accident fucked up your transition bad enough to turn you into the wolfman from the black lagoon? I’ve never seen a half-form as butt ugly as yours, but you’re pretty damn good at it for someone our age, and that’s quite an accomplishment there. Too bad you’re the stuff of actual fucking nightmares.”

Izuku blinked owlishly at the information he was just given. “I– what? I don’t–  _ what? _ ”  _ Half form? What  _ was _ this girl talking about? And an even better question, why didn’t he remember last night?  _ It was like his memory had a giant hole in it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, what’s a half-form?”

Aoife looked him dead in the eye for maybe, six seconds before she began to full on cackle. She was laughing so hard that she was bent at the waist with her arms wrapped around her middle. That continued for a lot longer than he felt it actually deserved until she straightened up, apparently done getting a stitch in her side at his expense, and wiped the jovial tears from her eyes. 

“Good joke,” she shook her head disbelievingly. “Boy, you are the first wolf I’ve ever met who was brazen enough to be caught bare assed on the forest floor and try to use the amnesia excuse. To be fair,” she sat down on the ground with him and pulled her mud stained braid over her shoulder, “you almost have a plausible reason to lie. C’mon spill your trick, how’d you figure out the half form before you started the Growing process? I thought it wasn’t something we could do until our bodies were strong enough, but you seem to have it down pat, even if you have no sense of self control while you’re at it.” Aoife leaned forward, her eyes wide and mystified like Izuku was some magic maker from another universe instead of the confused, naked kid he currently was. Speaking of which, as he was becoming more and more aware of his lack of proper coverage, the more his brain threatened to stroke out. 

He flailed a bit and pointed to a small but dense copse of trees about fifteen feet to the north of the two teenagers. “I–” Izuku’s voice cracked and squeaked when he first tried to speak through his mortification, so he started again, “ _ I  _ am going to get dressed–  _ please _ go stand over there and please, God, don’t look.” He begged.

Aoife snorted, like the mere notion of trying to sneak a peek at him was so ridiculous it was impossible, but she went where he directed and faced away from him. Izuku almost tore the zipper from the backpack in his panic to get his clothes out. He tugged a mud spotted pair of cargo pants over a pair of miraculously clean underwear, but blanched when he saw that he had failed to pack an extra shirt. 

_ “Oh man, what am I gonna do now?”  _ He mumbled, tremulous, _ “I can’t walk around shirtless! I’ll get arrested for public indecency _ – _ ” _

“Why don’t you just beat the dirt out of your jacket and wear that?” 

Izuku slapped a hand over his mile per minute mouth and jolted away from the girl who had gotten  _ very  _ close to him,  _ very  _ quickly, and  _ very  _ quietly. She was absolutely invading what he considered to be his personal bubble, and she didn’t seem to notice. She was close enough that he could smell the faint aroma of earth and rain coming off her. 

He took a step back and crossed his arms over his stomach in self consciousness. “I thought you were going to stay over there.” He hissed, jabbing a finger at the place he had directed her to only a minute before.

Aoife waved his concern away and picked up the dirt caked hoodie from the ground. “C’mon, how can a werewolf be self conscious? It’s just our bodies, so long as we respect each other and don’t try anything gross we should be allowed to be confident about ourselves right? Nudity is an unfortunate consequence of our bloodline, might as well get comfy with it.” She preoccupied herself with finding a sturdy stick as she spoke. 

“And… I’m sorry I was so horrible yesterday, I didn’t mean to set you on edge by taking your seat in class or anything. I smelled something familiar and mostly just wanted to play around a little? I mean, I thought we could sorta make a joke of it, but I also hoped to make a place for myself, so I wouldn’t have to jump through the usual ‘new kid’ hoops.” She kicked at a stick she had almost stepped on, keeping her eyes low, almost like she didn’t want to look Izuku in the eye. “I think my actions pushed you closer to your Growing, and then your fight with the blonde jerk only tipped you over the edge. That fight was pretty much all my fault too. I antagonized him, and you paid for it because you were protecting me. I’m sorry for that.” Aoife stooped down and snagged the stick she had been investigating.

Izuku stood in silence as he watched the white blonde girl hook his hoodie onto a low tree branch, listening while she kept talking. 

“I can’t be a hundred percent sure if the fight set us off, but it’s what makes sense to me.” She hefted the stick and gave his poor hoodie a whack, dust billowing off of the fabric in a sandy cloud. “If I had been less of a bitch, you wouldn’t have gotten attacked yesterday.” Another few swings; more dirt fell from the hoodie. She hit the hoodie until dirt stopped falling off the jacket and the red was more clearly seen. 

Aoife unhooked the article from the branch and slowly approached Izuku. She kept a respectful distance and held the battered clothing out like a peace offering. “I’m really sorry, can we start over and try to be friends?”

Izuku scanned her face, looking for dishonesty in her wobbly smile. He wasn’t accustomed to receiving apologies, nor was he really sure how he was supposed to respond to what he  _ thought _ was a genuine request for friendship. Aoife had given Izuku a very strong negative first impression yesterday, and she had pretty much lead to his humiliation at lunch… 

Izuku gently retrieved his hoodie and gave her a smile. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hold yesterday against you. While the fight was a direct consequence of your attitude, the choice I made to help you was mine, and I don’t regret it. I would love to start over.” Izuku stuck his hand out, an offer to shake on the new treaty. “I’m Izuku Midoriya.”

Aoife let out the puff of air that she had been holding in and appeared to deflate with the magnitude of her relief. She gave his hand a firm shake and introduced herself for the second time in as many days. 

“That’s awesome,” she chuckled lightly. “We should get out of here, yeah?” 

Izuku nodded and shrugged his jacket on over his bare chest. The feeling of the grimy fabric against his skin made Izuku shiver. It was better than nothing, but only by a little. 

“Oh,  _ crap.”  _ Izuku lamented as he realized what he was missing. “I need to find my shoes.”

 

—

 

The pair of teenagers walked through the foggy forest, and Izuku got a bit more information on what Aoife had kept calling the Growing while the pair searched for Izuku’s shoes. 

So far, Aoife’s story matched his mother’s explanation from the morning before, it was just another way of saying ‘werewolf puberty.’ Young adult werewolves went through a second coming of age, but, unlike what his mother had mentioned, Aoife claimed that, just like when they first grow into their wolves at age four or five, they have very little control of themselves when a growth spurt hit.

Aoife hadn’t understood what Izuku was saying when he said he wasn’t aware that he would be forced to shift during this process.

“Forced? I guess that’s what you could call it, I mean, the need to shift for me was almost unstoppable, I almost gave in a few times on the train. So, yeah, I guess that counts as ‘forced’.” She said, humming thoughtfully.

Izuku shook his head, “No, you don’t get it– I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried! That’s the only thing I remember from last night… along with how much it hurt.” Izuku wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered at the violent memory. His skin had burned and crawled, his muscles felt like they were tearing apart over and over as his body changed, his lungs were crushed by his rib cage, almost as if his chest cavity was just too small to accommodate the organs, and his bones certainly felt like they had been shattering repeatedly for all it hurt. Pain had burned across his nerves with every change before it all went hazy. Absolute Hell.

Aoife looked disbelievingly at him from the side, “It’s not supposed to hurt. My shift didn’t, at least, and my parents never warned me about anything painful– well that’s not entirely true. According to my mom we’re gonna shoot up a few inches taller after this, so buckle up for some real pretty growing pains.” She tittered, though the sound tapered off into a unhappy grunt. Izuku agreed with the sentiment, growing pains sucked.

“So,” Izuku’s voice pitched a little with worry, “do you think there’s something wrong with me? Maybe I hurt myself in someway by accidentally changing only halfway?”  _ Oh god,  _ he thought,  _ what if the injury was permanent? _

Aoife quickly told him–  _ something?  _ Though what she had said, Izuku couldn’t be sure. Her accent had thickened, and her voice had sped up, making her Japanese unintelligible. 

“I’m-“ Izuku quailed a bit, not knowing the best way to ask the girl to re-pronounce her statement without sounding rude, “I’m really sorry, but could you repeat that?” 

Aoife blinked, before she groaned. “I got all garbled, didn’t I?” She sheepishly murmured.

Izuku made a seesaw motion with his hand, “A little bit, yeah. But wasn’t too bad!” He consoled. “I could tell it was Japanese, I just don’t know how to navigate your accent when it gets that strong, sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping he hadn’t hurt her feelings or embarrassed his new friend.

Aoife made a dismissive gesture, “It’s fine,” she was careful to keep her accent in check as she spoke, “I can’t get better without constructive criticism after all.” 

“What did you say earlier?” 

“I  _ said,”  _ Aoife gave him a small swat on the shoulder, making him yelp and jump back. He rubbed the barely smarting skin where the hit had landed His hoodie had done absolutely  _ nothing  _ to absorb the impact, though the attack was leagues away from being harmful. “You worry too much, Greenie. You’re not  _ wounded for life _ , you’ve just got a strong wolf’s mind, you sap. You can’t just  _ stop changing _ halfway, not until after we start this Growth process. The closest we come to using our more feral assets partially are our teeth, claws, and wolf eyes, otherwise it’s just too easy to slip up.” She teased and stuck her tongue out at him.

Izuku, slyurprising himself, returned to his original place beside the blonde and snapped out a quick hand to landreturned a soft smack to her shoulder. He didn’t have much experience with play fighting, so he barely put any power behind his hand, not wanting to offend or hurt his new companion. 

Aoife gave a small dramatic gasp and stumbled backwards, like Izuku had just spit on her. There was a brief surge of social panic that he had gone too far before she leapt over and tugged the stiff and crusted fabric of his jackets hood over his eyes and past his nose. The young werewolf barked with laughter as he tried to wrestle the vivacious female off him. After Izuku managed to subdue his impish friend with a ‍headlock, he stilled as he caught the faintest whiff of a familiar scent. He forgot entirely that he had his arm loosely looped around Aoife’s neck until she started trying to squeeze out of the hold but was unable to shimmy away, no matter how aggressively she tried to squirm. Izuku jolted and released his captive while she was mid-pull, and she dropped to the ground with a very undignified sound. 

“Oh crap- I’m so sorry.” Izuku snickered and offered his hand to help the disgruntled blonde up. She sniffed haughtily and took his hand, not before calling Izuku something in a language he didn’t understand, but he knew an insult when he heard one.  After she was back up and steady on her feet Izuku started to investigate the weird smell again. 

“You smell that?” He asked.

Aoife inhaled deeply through her nose, and soon it wrinkled up in distaste. “You mean the vodka, cigarettes, and wet sugar smell?” Her tone carried no fondness for the odd smell.

Izuku nodded eagerly, “We should follow it, don’t you think? See what it is?” His curiosity growing by the second, turning into enthusiasm at a breakneck speed. Aoife looked appalled, shaking her head hard enough to send the tail end of her long braid flying.

“God above– are you all animal up there?” She asked, poking Izuku’s forehead, “Are you gonna want to go sniff out every nasty thing you catch wind of in these woods? It’s probably just rotten old trash.” She reasoned. But Izuku was too curious, the smell  _ could _ be trash, but he just wanted to check. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to test himself to see if his apparently monstrous shift last evening had messed anything up. It would suck if Izuku lost his sharp sense of smell. 

Izuku shook his head, “No, I promise– just this once! If it’s trash, I’ll make up the wasted time, I swear–  _ c’mon,  _ it’ll be a friendship bonding thing!”

The blonde looked wholly unimpressed, she huffed with enough force to blow her mud stained bangs away from her right eye. “You’re a funny guy, Greenie, not many people think hunting for trash is a bonding experience.” But she gave in, grinning and walking towards where the smell seemed to be coming from. “If this turns out to be what I know it is– a dumped sack of foul garbage– you owe me whatever the yen equivalent of five dollars is.” She called back. 

Izuku hopped to catch up to her, agreeing to the terms of her condition with a hearty, “Deal!”

They spent about thirty minutes searching the damp and foggy wilderness for what Aoife was a hundred and ten percent sure was illegally dumped trash. But when Izuku parted a thick bush to look in a clearing he was surprised to find the source of the gross smell was Katsuki _ fucking  _ Bakugou _. _ He was passed out on the soggy ground, with what looked like a small gash on his temple, in a filthy grey hoodie Izuku had never seen before, and he didn’t know  _ why _ Katsuki would be wearing such a nasty smelling hoodie when he had his much nicer brand name graphic hoodie tied around his waist. 

“Hey Uh… Aoife? You’re not gonna believe who I just found.” He called to his companion without looking away from the crumpled form of the guy he kind of hated.

Aoife stood from where she was bent over looking under brambles and groaned, seemingly popping her vertebra before she started to head over,

“Look Greenie, it could be the prime minister, and I would be none the wiser. I’m still basically a tourist in this country, I don’t know who all does and doesn’t sleep in the woods–“ she glanced into the clearing and her eyes flew from tired disinterested to shock.  _ “Oh damn isn’t that the guy who beat the shit out of you yesterday?” _ She whispered harshly, as if suddenly trying to not disturb the comatose kid laying in the mud.

Izuku frowned, “He did not beat the shit out of me.”

Aoife gave him a disbelieving look. “I don’t know what you consider to be a beating but you two sure weren’t going back and forth.”

Izuku narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly, “Would you believe me if I said I let him win that fight?”

“If it’ll make you feel better.”

Izuku rolled his eyes. 

Aoife nudged the boy next to her and snickered, “Looks like you owe me five bucks, or, you know, the yen amount equal to that.”

Izuku’s jaw dropped and he spluttered. “N–no I don’t! You said that bet was if we found trash! ‘A dumped sack of foul garbage.’ Those were your exact words! The smell is coming off Bakugou, not a trash bag!”

Aoife wrinkled her nose, “I don’t see much of the difference, foul garbage fits that human crackle stick just fine I think.”

Izuku rolled his eyes, and jumped over the bulk of the bush to reach the fallen boy. Izuku didn’t wholly  _ disagree  _ with the harsh dragging Aoife was doing to Katsuki, he just thought it was a little unfair to tear into someone so ruthlessly while they couldn’t respond. The curly haired boy’s bare feet skidded across the loose and damp leaves as he hurried to check his bully’s neck for a pulse, and heaved a relieved sigh when he found a strong beat under his fingertips. Aoife crouched down by the angry boy’s head, her purple sweater sleeved pulled up to cover her nose. “Is he dead?” She poked at his unresponsive face with a twig.

Izuku shook his head, “No, thank god. I think he’s just out cold.”

“Good thing too, even  _ I  _ would feel bad for this guy if he died in that foul sweat shirt.”

Izuku snorted and tried to decide if he should leave the human firecracker to his injury induced rest, or get Aoife to pour the rest of her canteen onto his face to wake him. But neither plan was necessary because Katsuki’s red eyes snapped open after the third poke to the face from the twig armed Aoife.

Izuku jolted back with a curse, Katsuki had come up swinging and swearing, the boy’s fist came alive with firecracker snaps. Izuku barely dodged the attack in time to pin both of his attackers wrists to the ground on instinct. Though Izuku barely had any muscle compared to Katsuki, who went to the gym three times a week, he had very little trouble keeping the older boy stuck groundside. 

“Deku! Let me go, you fucking freak!” Katsuki thrashed and screamed insults until Aoife dug around in her bag and stuffed what looked to be a black t shirt into Katsuki’s mouth, cutting his screams short.

“Aoife, that wasn’t very polite. Plus, it’s not gonna calm him down any faster.” Izuku frowned at his friend’s methods.

“ _Lands alive_ – the way he talks is filthy!” She exclaimed, ignoring izuku’s concerns. She did, however, make deliberate eye contact with Izuku, as if to ask for confirmation that their captive was always so foul-mouthed, Izuku shrugged his best ‘ _you get used to it’_ shrug and looked down at the boy he still had pinned. 

“Katsuki, I’m not gonna let go until you calm down, Okay?” He spoke with as much kindness he could muster for the guy who ruined his last school uniform and caused him to go without lunch. He thought he had done a pretty good job too, until Katsuki started thrashing harder, his hands lighting up with weak and almost heatless pops, communicating quite clearly how not okay he thought the arrangement was. Izuku made a note of how cold the other boy’s hands were, the unseasonal chill was probably the only thing saving him from a fiery death. 

Katsuki even started to try and kick Izuku, though it didn’t work out very well since the younger boy was sitting near his torso. Aoife went ahead and held his legs, most likely to keep Katsuki from hurting himself. Her eyes flashed gold briefly as she had to access that more wild part of herself to gain the strength to properly keep Katsuki’s legs down.   
  
“Hey how come I couldn’t wear that shirt?” Izuku asked grumpily.    
  
Aoife snickered. “‘Cuz it’s a high rise crop top. Still wanna borrow it?” She asked slyly.   
  
Izuku wilted. “No…”

Eventually Katsuki stopped his struggling, and made loud but calmer grunts, portraying that he was ready to talk,  _ not scream _ , and the T-shirt gag was no longer necessary. Aoife let go of his legs and waited to see if the explosive boy was going to start seizing for control again, but when he stayed still, she removed the shirt from his mouth. 

_ “Okay.”  _ Katsuki seethed through gritted teeth, his eyes bright with hate and something more hesitant.  _ “I’m as calm as I’m gonna fucking get. Let. Me. Go. You freak.” _

Izuku quailed a bit at the murderous look on his bully’s face. Aoife snorted, “If you’re just gonna be rude, I’ll put the shirt back in your mouth.”

Izuku jumped to correct that statement, “No! No, you aren’t,” he continued softly, “because that wasn’t part of the deal, he’s calm, he’s not screaming anymore, so we can  _ talk _ . I’m going to let go of him, and you’re going to put that shirt away.” Izuku didn’t want to act like a kidnapper! He just wanted to know why Katsuki was out in the woods, and to know if he had seen anything his mom would kill him over later. Izuku slowly released his grip on the blond boy’s wrists, and leaned away from him, sitting on his knees, the damp ground soaking the knees of his pants.

Katsuki shot up into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around himself, probably to get some warmth back in his wet clothes. The explosive boy glared at the two of them and spoke slowly, as if each word spoken calmly caused him physical pain.

“What the fuck happened last night? You think you’re pretty smart, huh Deku? Tricking me all these years?”

Izuku felt dread fill his stomach. “Kacchan.” He spoke slowly, using the nickname he hadn’t spoken in at least two years. “How much did you see?”

Katsuki laughed darkly. “You think you’re special? You think your quirk is so damn unique you need to keep it a secret? What the fuck Deku, how long have you been able to turn into a giant monster?”

Izuku’s breath caught in his throat.  _ He thinks it’s a quirk _ . What should he do? He didn’t have a plan to use if anyone learned his secrets, and he definitely didn’t have a plan for  _ this _ . Should he use Katsuki’s head injury as an excuse and play dumb?  _ ‘What monster Katsuki? You hit your head pretty hard, I think it’s safe to say you dreamed it’  _ Should he use this as an opportunity to finally break his mother’s control over his part of the secret and make the bullying stop?  _ ‘Yes it’s my quirk, cool right?’  _ Or… should he tell him the truth? 

He had no reason to tell the secret, he knew he didn’t, but the option was still  _ there  _ wasn’t it? His eyes met Aoife’s and she seemed to read his mind. She shook her head slowly, a warning to use the out he was given and leave the secret of an entire species well enough alone. 

But Katsuki wasn’t done asking questions. “And you,” he jabbed a finger at the Irish girl who sat four feet away from him, “what the fuck are you doing here, you a freak too? You like stalking losers?” He sneered.

Aoife seemed to have gotten her fill of Katsuki’s rude diction because she snarled and stood up. “You better watch yourself before I knock your loud mouth out,  _ boy. _ ” She spat the term  _ boy _ like she was talking to a petulant toddler instead of someone who was probably her equal in age, it was obviously a jab meant to belittle the one in front of her. “I don’t have to explain anything to a scrub like you.”

Katsuki looked absolutely livid from his place on the ground. His knees up near his chest, and his body wracked with cold shivers, Katsuki reminded Izuku of a wet purse dog in that moment. “You wanna go, little bitch?” He snarled.  _ Yeah. A nasty little rat dog.  _

Aoife started flexing her wrist, her hand lighting up with blue energy, until she stopped completely, looking up in the tree cover with a tilted head look of confusion. “‘Zuku,” she said in a light, borderline pleasant tone. Izuku was so taken aback by her rapid fire switch from spitting fire to cheerful he thought he might’ve gotten whiplash from it. The air of danger was gone entirely, leaving an awkward absence in the morning air.

“I think I found one of your shoes?” She continued, pointing up to some branches “Why’s it in a tree though? Did you have that much trouble last night?”

Izuku looked up so fast his neck popped. Low and behold there his shoe was, hanging by a single lace that was tangled in the branches, spinning languidly in the wind. Izuku, to his credit, tried to remember what the hell had lead to his shoe being thrown into the trees but he couldn’t find any recollection of the previous evening after trespassing the property fence. He just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know… maybe?”

Aoife gave him a sympathetic  _ ‘it’s okay buddy’  _ look before she started to bounce on the balls of her feet, rolling her shoulders, and allowing blue lightning streaks to jump all along her body. 

“I’ll get it.”

Before Izuku could ask what she was doing she took one last little bounce before she shot up in a proper blue spark powered jump, that carried her all the way up to the branches  _ above  _ where his shoe hung. Aoife yelped as her blue glow began to fade and clung desperately to the branches with both her legs and her arms like a deranged squirrel so she didn’t fall.

“Oh  _ crap– _ Aoife?! Are you okay?” Izuku called up, starting to panic for his friends safety. He had only just gotten her… respect? Vague friendship? Either way it would be really depressing to lose his only companion to a broken neck only an hour after gaining her friendship.

Aoife chuckled weakly, “I’m fine– my quirk is a little finicky like that.” She adjusted her death grip on the branches, so that her legs were dangling down, before allowing herself to slip down onto the branches below, so she could sit down, straddling the thick branch under her to free up her hands to untangle the single red shoe from the tree. 

Katsuki snorted derisively, still shivering on the ground as a particularly sharp wind blew through the woods, no doubt chilling the soaked boy to the bone. “What kind of p-person can’t control a quirk like that? Doesn’t look too hard to me.”

Aoife raised a single eyebrow at Katsuki before she hurled a now energy charged shoe at the male blonds smug face. Katsuki barely escaped his fate of getting nailed in the face by rolling over with a particularly vulgar swear mentioning mothers, another nasty phrase flew from the explosive individual when he rolled right into a bush. 

“Oh– Aoife, no!” Izuku morosed, looking for where his red sneaker went, “Don’t throw my shoe, you might tear it up, I’m not getting a new pair until next Christmas.” Izuku got new shoes every two years to try and cut down on personal expenses, typically as his ‘big gift’ for holidays. He found it peeking out from behind a stump, and carefully started to brush dirt of the cheap red vinyl.

A nervous but sincere sounding “sorry” drifted from the canopy. Izuku noticed how hesitant Aoife looked from her perch in the tree.

“Izuku, would you mind trying to catch me? I’m afraid I’ll break a leg if I just drop down.” Aoife pulled her braid over her shoulder and ran nervous hands over the messy hair, her anxiety towards a broken bone was clear. Izuku dismissed the surprise of being addressed by his first name and sent one last satisfied smirk to the boy struggling to get his hair untangled from the bush’s branches, apparently his hair was just long enough to be a hazard, before he got up to help. Izuku moved to where he’d be standing right under where Aoife would fall, arms out and legs braced as well as he knew how to. 

“Yeah no worries, I’ve got you.” Izuku tried to sound sure if himself, but he was subconsciously panicking about accidentally dropping or failing to catch the girl, but while he was preoccupied with his crisis Aoife had already jumped and landed somewhat awkwardly in Izuku’s arms. Izuku’s left knee fell in and the pair hit the ground with twin ‘ _ Oof!’ _ But apparently no one was hurt because they started laughing like hyenas from their place on the ground. Aoife was on her back, sprawled across Izuku’s lap, and he didn’t even think twice about the press of contact.

After Izuku caught his breath, he nudged Aoife’s shoulder and finally asked the question he had meant to ask earlier.

“What kind of quirk do you have? Some kind of power up? Or is it an energy thing?” Izuku’s hand itches for his journal but he had left all his school supplies at home to make room in his bag for clothes. 

Aoife sat up and removed herself from his lap. She swished her bangs out of her right eye, which didn’t do much since they swung right back to their first position, before she responded. “Sort of both I guess, it’s called Kinetic Energy Manipulation. If I’m in motion, I can turn that kinetic energy into acceleration and force, like jumping higher, running faster…  _ throwing things _ …” The last part was said while glancing at Katsuki, who was still stuck in the bush, no doubt worried he was still gonna try to kick the crap out of her over the eraser situation from yesterday or the shoe from earlier. “But after a while I get super tired from it.”

Katsuki, suddenly free from his shrubbery prison, snarled and dug around in the bush. After a second he threw something at Izuku. Izuku flinched and covered his face, but the object didn’t hit his face, instead it landed in his lap. He looked down, and saw his other shoe in his lap. He looked up at Katsuki, ready to say thanks but he was cut off by the rude boy in front of him.

“I would have let it stay lost but I didn’t want to hear you bitch about.”

Izuku grit his teeth.  _ What was so hard about just doing a good deed without being such a dick about it? _

“Right. We should go.” Izuku grumbled after he had tugged his soggy shoes on and stood, holding a hand out to Aoife to help her up, a gesture she accepted. 

Katsuki seized forward, murder in his eyes. “You still haven’t explained what happened Deku!”

Irritation swept over Izuku, he snapped his gaze over to Katsuki and made what could possibly have been a poor decision. Gold fire came to life in his eyes, and in a low voice, Izuku spoke.

“ _ I don’t owe you anything, Katsuki.” _

Katsuki squared his shoulders and looked like he was having trouble holding himself back. But he didn’t ask again. He opted to rip the disgusting hoodie off his shoulders and throw it to the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. Aoife stood next to Izuku and stayed within pace as Izuku began to walk away, in search of the treeline. Katsuki stayed a handful of feet behind them. 

They continued in silence for the next hour of the hike, until they reached the fence that closed off the private property from the town. Izuku looked for the slit in the chain link he vaguely remembered from last night, being careful to stay out of sight within the treeline. 

“Aoife, how did you get through the fence? I think I found a hole in it somewhere last night, but I don’t recognize anything around here.” 

Aoife shrugged and twirled a string of her dirt stained hair between her fingers. “Jumped it.”

Izuku looked from the girl who couldn’t be more than four feet and maybe ten inches tall to the easily ten foot fence. “You… jumped it? Just, up and over? The tree back there was maybe four feet above us, are you capable of a ten foot vertical jump?”

Aoife made a seesaw motion with her hand, “Half quirk, half climb honestly.”

Izuku would have asked more questions but Katsuki stuck his nose into the conversation harshly. “Q and A later, we need to stay in the treeline and find the hole in the fence, I’m not getting my perfect record ruined by getting seen climbing the fence.”

Aoife met snark with more snark, “Do you even know what it means to be pleasant company?”

“Fuck off, shorty.”

Izuku rolled his eyes and tugged his hood up. He was tired of all the posturing, he just wanted a hot shower and to sleep for the next billion years, or until Katsuki stopped screaming at him. Whichever came first.

—

They found the hole in the fence in an acceptable amount of time, and slipped through without further incident. Izuku thanked his lucky stars for that. After the arguments had calmed, the group had discovered that Katsuki had lost his phone the night before, Izuku’s was dead, and Aoife had absolutely no service. Fantastic. Aoife informed them that she had told her parents about where she was going before she had left for the train, they had even been the ones to recommend this forest as he best place to ‘do what she needed to do’, Izuku had just gotten off here due to it being the only forest he knew of, other than the one near the school. But the local woods were thin and very small, too small to feel safe in. Izuku himself had sent a text message to his mother, a brief description that something was happening to him and he’d call her tomorrow, along with an active location drop at the station.

They agreed to stay together until they got on a train home, and checked in with the adults, although Katsuki had argued against it loudly for quite some time. 

The comfort of knowing he was on his way home slipped out from under Izuku as soon as he and the others had made it into the town. The area seemed almost empty, like the majority of the population had just left and decided to not come back. Storefronts left empty, and sounds echoed sharply in alleyways and off of closed windows. 

There were still some people of course, and they seemed kind enough, but Aoife pointed out that they all looked terrible, like filthy kidnap victims, with their dirty hair and even dirtier clothes. So they stuck to quieter streets in hopes of keeping low profiles. 

Izuku  had been harboring an ill feeling ever since they came into town, since they left the fence actually. Like eyes were on his back, watching his every move. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his scalp itched with nervous tension. All the while he kept glancing behind himself and watching the alleyways with apprehension. The fog has persisted all throughout the day, a white hazy atmosphere hung lazily in the sky and on the streets ahead of them, like a damp promise that the maze like town would swallow them and hide any trails they left.

Aoife shivered and rubbed her arms through her large sweater, as if to ward off goosebumps or… maybe she felt like they were being watched as well. “Guys I don’t like it here, there’s something in the air. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t bode well.” She worried.

Izuku hummed in troubled agreement, turning once again to look over his shoulder for whatever phantoms were stalking them. “I feel like we’re being followed, or like we’re walking right into something, don’t you? It’s too quiet here.”

Aoife shuddered. “Like bugs pinned to a board.”

Katsuki scoffed and kicked a loose rock down the street. “If you two are too chicken shit to handle some people looking out their windows, then you really shouldn’t get yourselves into these messes.”

Izuku narrowed his eyes, “You can feel it too, can’t you? Something's not right here and we all know it.”

“Then stop bitching and let's turn around- oh  _ fuck!”  _ Katsuki stopped mid turn and pointed down the street, his jolt of fear manifesting in his legs and making him take a cautionary step back. 

Izuku spun around and what he saw chilled his very core. 

A very large man dressed in dark clothes had walked into the middle of the street just sixty feet behind them. Izuku could feel his gut twist in anxiety, he hadn’t heard a single footstep, and he had just checked behind him. That meant the man had shown up in the past moments, and had done so silently. Aoife looked just as shocked, she hadn’t heard anything either by the looks of it. 

The sound of boots hitting the asphalt behind them alerted all three of the group to the presence of another person. Izuku’s heart began to hammer when he saw a stick thin young man with a baseball bat walking towards them from the opposite end of the road. 

_ “Go!” _

Izuku didn’t know who had yelled the command, maybe he himself had done it, but he didn’t care. He grabbed the back of Aoife’s sweater and yanked her in the direction of a side street, parroting the half screamed word- “ _ Go!”  _

Katsuki had already started to sprint down the side street, but Izuku found it easy to catch up to him, Aoife right behind them. Izuku’s view of the world narrowed into two thoughts , _ Don’t stop, Stay together. _ Izuku found himself running at the back of the group.

Aoife was faster than Katsuki even without her quirk, but Katsuki wasn’t like them, and there was almost no trace of the telltale burned sugar scent that Katsuki’s nitroglycerine produced. In this cold front, in those wet clothes, Katsuki was as good as quirkless. So Izuku pushed him forward every time the ash blonde began to lag, and in the back of his mind he tried to figure out what was happening. 

Before he could try to make sense of anything at all, a high pitched scream tore through his mind. Izuku barely heard the others scream over his own cry right as he tripped and hit the ground skidding. Loose gravel dig into his skin, and the sting of road burn lit up his arm in pain, but he didn’t even register it. His hands were over his ears, but the sound didn’t stop– it didn’t even soften. 

He was halfway curled into the fetal position when a foot came down on the middle of his back, right on top of his backpack, hard enough to make Izuku gasp in pain. He opened his eyes to see who had him pinned, but his gaze locked on the baseball bat that was swinging lazily in the corner of his vision. Past the baseball bat was Aoife on the ground clutching her head and shaking badly. Izuku could barely hear Katsuki struggling with someone over the sound of the horrible ringing. It was like an explosion had gone off in his head and his ears were suffering the aftermath. 

In the next second he saw too much happen all at once. Katsuki was thrown to the ground, Aoife was pulled up by the back of her neck by a massive hand, and the baseball bat had disappeared–

**_Crack!_ **

The sound of wood hitting something solid, blinding pain on the side of his skull, and then an all encompassing blackness.

—

Izuku was jolted awake as his head hit the floor harshly. He groaned as his body came alive to a dull and stiff pain that rested in his every bone and muscle. He tried to grit his teeth against the discomfort, but his teeth ground into the rough fabric of a gag he hadn’t been aware of until then. He tried to bring his hands up to move the obstruction, but that only brought two new pieces of information to his attention: his hands were restrained behind his back with something that felt like either twine or a zip-tie, and when his eyes flew open, the second fact was solidified. Izuku wasn’t on the ground, he was  _ inside a trunk _ – or maybe a box of some kind. He couldn’t straighten out, his legs were half bent and his spine felt stiff. He jerked his wrists in a vain attempt to free himself from the restraints. His mind started to race and his heart began to hammer with panic.

The box Izuku was trapped in was dropped heavily, he cried out when it rolled into its side. His head hit the lid of the box, he heard something crack, and he felt the sharp pain of a cut on his forehead. His head was spinning from the impact, but he dazedly noticed the lid of the trunk he was being kept in had cracked open a little, letting pale grey light into the upended confinement. The light revealed the roof of the the box. A pitted and dirty mirror was adhered to the entirety of the lid’s interior, and with the light, Izuku could see himself in it. The mirror was cracked now, a spiderweb with his blood smeared onto into its crevices from where his head had hit it.

Dry blood was crusted inthe hair on the side of his head, more of the red fluid was flowing lazily from the cut in his forehead and down to the side of his face. The sight of his situation made his stomach drop and his skin go ghost white, his freckles stood out in stark contrast. Like dark wet sand had been sprinkled on white paper. 

His eyes were wide and they were no longer wholly green. Instead, his emerald gaze was heavily dusted with gold, the wolfish tinge threatening to overcome his irises if his panic grew any stronger. The gag looked like it had been made from a dirty bar rag, Izuku could see a dark stain alarmingly close to the corner on his mouth. He was mere centimeters away from his reflection, and somehow, laying there, staring into his own frightened eyes like he could beg his reflection to reach out and untie him, set his body into a frenzy. He felt the sides of the box start to lift, people–  _ kidnappers _ – started to talk in angry tones as Izuku was jostled in his far too small prison.

He started to thrash, screaming through the gag-  _ he wanted out!  _ He started to kick the wall of the trunk closest to his feet,  _ and oh god,  _ he realized as he started to cry in earnest,  _ his ankles were bound too _ . He could hear his kidnappers shouting about how they should just drop him again in hopes he hit his head hard enough to pass back out. Izuku gave a tearful outcry when a solid impact hit the lid of the trunk, freezing when a slimy sounding female voice leaked through the trunk walls.

“ _ Shut up, you little monster. If you keep this up, we’ll have to hurt the kids we caught you with, you got that?” _

Izuku tried to stop from hyperventilating, letting out a trembling sound of affirmation, asserting that he understood as loudly as he dared. He had been scared before, but this? This was fear for his  _ life,  _ and he couldn’t believe that this was happening to him.  _ Were his friends okay?  _ The thought played on repeat in his chaos addled mind.  _ Did these people threaten them like they threatened him?  _

Another whimper escaped him when the box was tossed up a little, his head ramming against the wooden bottom of the box again. The carriers most likely had to heave it back into their arms. Izuku heard a small “ _ tink”  _ sound as a piece of glass from the broken mirror fell from the lid and hit the floor of the box. Izuku’s hands scrabbled for the piece of glass- it had sounded large, large enough to do something with. When he found the piece he almost started to cry with relief. It was a good size, maybe three inches long, and if he could stretch his shoulders downwards enough he could probably saw through the ties on his ankles. He couldn’t really tell what was on his wrists, whatever it was it was too high on his arms to be able to feel with his fingers, but by trying to pull his ankles apart he could feel multiple small wrappings binding him, like a shoelace, or maybe twine.

Izuku’s imagination ran away with him while he accidentally pricked the tips of his fingers as he worked to help the glass find purchase to dig further into his bindings, and soon, he had a terrible motion picture playing in his mind's eye.

_ Kidnapped boy found dead, bound and gagged inside a trunk, killers unknown. _

Would his mother realize he was missing? Izuku started to sob softly when cold mental clarity returned to him for just a second, and within that second he remembered. His mom was working late again tonight, and they rarely got to eat breakfast together–  _ was this morning the last time he was going to get to see his mother? Had he really spent that morning being irritated at her? For what, watching out for him? Not realizing that he wasn’t interested in girls?  _

_ Why hadn’t he hugged her? Had he told her that he loved her? How long would it take before his mom noticed he was missing? Two days? Four?  _

His bleeding fingers hurt terribly, but he didn’t care. He sawed away and cried as he tried to desperately remember the last time he had told his mom ‘I love you’.

By the time the first string broke Izuku was close to convincing himself that he had told his mother that he loved her the day before, in the only way he could talk to his mother while she was working. His final expression of love and gratitude to his mother would have been a  _ text message.  _

_ ‘Thx mom, ily!’ _

Izuku had to get out, he had to get out right  _ now!   _ He wanted to see his mom again, he wanted to apologize for being so short with her, he wanted to be  _ home. _

The second string severed and Izuku checked his progress by pulling his ankles apart. It felt like just one more string was left, and Izuku had to bite his tongue to keep the sob of relief from escaping him. He couldn’t risk his captors getting suspicious and checking on him. He pushed his shoulders down as far as he could, he could feel the burn in his spine as his muscles protested the unnatural bend, the glass scraped against his binding-

_ snap! _

His legs were free. Izuku could have cried in hysterical joy, but he bit tongue and started to try and move the bonds in his wrists. After a few horribly long moments of struggling he was able to work the ties down to his wrists, he felt the bindings with his unhurt fingertips, and was relieved to find woven shoelaces were what held him, no wonder they cut so easily. But before he could start sawing his way to freedom, the trunk swayed side to side dangerously, the movement lasted for a few seconds before the swaying got more violent and Izuku realized what was going to happen.-

The sensation of being thrown was nauseating, but the worst part came when Izuku’s prison hit the ground. The jarring impact caused the green-haired boy’s shoulder to slam into the side of the box, the pain racing down his arm and loosening his grip. Before Izuku could do anything to stop it, the glass shard slipped out of his fingers and was gone. Izuku‘s scream was equal parts fear and pain. Hurt from the glass that cut his fingers, afraid that he was still trapped like rat in cage. Afraid. Afraid his captors would kill him, his new friend, and whatever the  _ fuck  _ Katsuki was.    
  
He wasn’t ready to die, especially not like this. He didn’t want to be a tragedy the news talked about for three minutes, he didn’t want the old witch of a landlady to be glad he was gone, or to lose his life while he was still a loser his classmates had pinned under their thumb. 

_ H _ ,  _ he didn’t want to die before his life started!  _ He refused to die cowering in the dark.    
  
The lid of the upended trunk fell open like a drawbridge to some unknown horror to which he was to be lead to in chains. Izuku tried to avoid the hands that reached for him, but from his position there wasn’t much he could do, so the hands caught him, and he was harshly pulled out of the prison by his ankles. Izuku grunted through the gag as his head fell off the lip of the stoop he was being dragged across, and the world returned to a hazy blur before it all faded into black. 


	3. Blood and Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise mother fuckers I’m not dead. It’s been forever I know, I’m sorry, I was gonna update two days ago but then I got punched in the face and took a rain check to deal with everything that comes with almost getting your nose broken. Enjoy the chaos, thank you for your patience, I love you all

The first of Izuku’s senses to return was his hearing; the sound of heavy rain hitting a metal roof and the dull roar of a vehicle moving under his body. The shaking growl of the road passing under him was like a blunt ice pick sent to tear and snag on the migraine currently pulsing i n his temple. His head was pounding and his fingers were pulsing with the dull ache of accelerated up healing. The punctures in his fingertips from his glass escape attempt were knitting themselves back together at a much faster rate than a human's recuperation time, and the same thing was happening on the side of his head. Taking his first deep breath since waking, he was met with the lingering scent of dried blood, the familiar smell of damp earth, and wet sugar. 

“Oh thank god, you’re awake… Izuku, get up- _Izuku._ ” 

A pair of hands shook Izuku’s stiff shoulders, forcing his tired mind to surface into full wakefulness. Izuku opened his heavy eyes and saw Aoife’s worried face, a swinging lantern above her attached to the metal roof, its idle swing making Izuku dizzy and sick.. She was in worse shape than she had been before, her clothes were dirtier, and her face was streaked with still drying mud. Izuku rolled over, intent on getting up, when he saw Katsuki leaning up against a rusty wall, one leg up to his chest, the other stretched out in front of him, his head was lolling from left to right, like he was fighting to stay conscious. His skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and his chest rose and fell slowly, Izuku shot up to his hands and knees just in time to see his childhood companion fall to his side, and vomit weakly, wheezing in between retches. 

“Kacchan!” 

Izuku stumbled to the wall, falling heavily against it thanks to his dizziness, and looked down at the fallen form of his friend turned enemy. Aoife pulled herself to his side, not putting any weight on her right leg. 

“Aoife what happened?” Izuku gripped Katsuki’s shoulders to try and shake him out of his stupor. Aoife started to panic, shaking slightly. 

“After they hit you- one of them made us take some pills— one of the people would make the screaming sound happen again if we didn’t— I don’t know what they were but they must’ve been sedatives- they must’ve given Katsuki too much- it’s made him sick _oh god-“_

Izuku’s heart started to hammer, he didn’t like Katsuki on the best of days but all the signs, his lethargy, the vomit, the slow breathing, were pointing to the mean boy having a small overdose. Izuku racked his brain for the emergency rescue method he had learned in health class last year. 

Izuku helped Katsuki to sit up, and told Aoife to hold him by his shoulders, he pried the blonde’s jaw open and quickly stuck two fingers down Katsuki’s throat to gag him. Katsuki wretched around the intrusion twice before he expelled more of his stomach's contents to the rusty floor. When the blonde stopped throwing up, Izuku gagged him again, and tried to not throw up himself as more foul smelling ick spilled onto the floor. Soon Katsuki was just retching and coughing out bile, and Izuku got Aoife to let go of him so he could sling his arm over his shoulder. Izuku heaved Katsuki to his feet and began forcing him to walk, carefully avoiding the large puddle of sick, hoping to get Katsuki to work some of the drugs out of his system- _or would it make him worse?_ _How long has he been like this?_ Izuku wanted to retch at the thought of watching Katsuki die. 

Katsuki brought his hand up and gripped Izuku’s wrist with as much strength as he had at the moment. Hooded red eyes glared into concerned green ones. 

 _“Di’you stick your fingers do’n my fuckin’_ throat _Deku?”_

Katsuki was slurring his speech slightly, his voice was thick from his throat being inflamed, he was nowhere near supporting himself but he was _talking._ That had to be a good sign right?

“Thank god you’re okay, how’re you feeling?” Aoife had pushed herself up, though she had a very obvious limp in her right leg. She gently put a hand on Katsuki’s arm, before she hugged both of the boys, staying away from Katsuki’s face, just in case he wasn’t done vomiting. Izuku returned the embrace, and even Katsuki let himself relax into the hug. They spent a few seconds huddled together.

Izuku shuffled the trio away from the offensive smelling puddle and into the back corner of their current cage, it seemed that they were trapped inside an old metal cargo shipment container. Izuku helped Katsuki sit up, and Aoife slotted herself up against the sick boys side, to keep him right ways up, and seemingly to try and hide in the crook of his arm. Izuku noticed she was shaking, she was probably terrified. 

Katsuki thunked his head against the metal wall and groaned. Izuku started to ask him questions about the state he was in, trying to see if he was getting better or maybe worse. 

“How are you feeling? They gave you a lot of sedatives—“

Katsuki snarled weakly, his head lolling to the side “Leave me alone you damn liar.”

Izuku groaned low in his throat, the frustration summoning his brand new quick-draw temper to the surface, “Katsuki, you moron, we are being held captive by psychopaths, psychopaths who almost made you overdose, you could _still_ be overdosing for all I know, you _have_ to let me help! Don’t be stupid about this!” 

Katsuki just sniffed and put a hand over his mouth in silence. Izuku scowled, he was about to start demanding that Katsuki start helping to save his own life, but Katsuki’s drug induced slur interrupted his frustration. 

“You’re a liar… a damn liar…”

“Katsuki—“

“You had a quirk this whole time you bastard, you lied to me.”

Izuku flinched like he had been struck. His extended hand closed into a fist. Izuku tucked his head down, his anger lost its fire, turning to nothing but the smoldering embers of self ashamedness that _Katsuki_ had planted all those years ago, when he first sneered the words ‘Deku’ and ‘useless’. His long canines _clicked_ together as he grit his teeth.

“Why does it bother you so much? Are you mad you tormented me over something that turned out to be false? Are you mad that you lost your best friend because you couldn’t handle people thinking less of you? Or are you just mad that you lost a potential lackey to add to your goon squad?”

Izuku looked up and sad gold met with groggy red. “So what if I never told you about my secret? Because at the core of this whole argument, you fucked me over first didn’t you? You gave me a name meant to hurt my feelings, you and all your ‘friends’ tell me to go kill myself, you tell me I’ll never be anything but a useless waste of space. You tell me to shut my mouth but you still expect me to spill my guts to you? Was I ever really lying if you never wanted to hear me in the first place?”  
  
Katsuki seemed to deflate, like the weight of what Izuku was saying finally hit him after fourteen years. Izuku saw him deflate like before, two years ago when he called him “Katsuki” instead of “Kachaan” for the first time. Izuku hadn’t felt guilty about making the blonde sad then, and he didn’t feel guilty for it now. There was once a time when Izuku would have felt like a jerk for saying something so rude, but pretending everything was okay just hurt too much. 

Izuku’s attention was stolen by the sound of Aoife sniffling.   
  
She was hugging herself with one arm and massaging her neck with her free hand, probably trying to stay quiet and not interrupt. Izuku hadn’t realized it before, with the dim half light of the shipping container, but Aoife had a dark half ring of bruises on the back of her neck. Izuku remembered one of the last things he saw before being blitz attacked was a large hand descending onto Aoife and picking her up by the back of her neck. Izuku held his hand out, an offer to check her neck for her. When she didn’t understand Izuku spoke.   
  
“Hey, it’s okay, let me have a look.”   
          
Aoife nodded and pulled her hair back over her shoulder, turning around to give Izuku access to her wound. The bruise reached around like claws to the front of her throat, more proof that the assailant’s hands were of monster proportions. 

“Does it hurt a lot?” Izuku rubbed the girls shoulder comfortingly, feeling bad for asking such a dumb question. Aoife shrugged, mumbling that it definitely wasn’t fun. Izuku gave her shoulder a soft squeeze, before he made a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.

“I’ll get us out of here okay? I’ll figure out a plan and we’ll make it back home.”  
  
Aoife hunched in on herself, as if the worlds weight had settled unto her shoulders. When she spoke she started shaking again. “I _have_ to get home, I can’t disappear.”

Izuku motioned her over, arms open. Touch wasn’t ever really something he gave to other people, except his mother of course. No one other than his mom would ever try to touch him, but offering comfort to the girl felt so natural, it was the right thing to do. Aoife crawled over, avoiding Katsuki’s legs, and she fell into the proffered hold, her nervous shaking dying down a little. Katsuki himself snorted derisively, obviously put out by the show of support.

“God damn, you only met a day ago, and you’re already stalking each other in the woods and falling all over each other. It’s making me feel sicker, just wait to get a room for when we get out of this.” 

Izuku sighed as the comfort of the moment was ruined. Of course Katsuki was going to assume that the hug was something more than an attempt at comfort. Izuku cringed at the mortifying thought of what Katsuki thought of the last nights occurrence, Izuku and Aoife were definitely in a bad spot. He couldn’t explain the situation without outing himself, he either explained he was gay to his childhood bully, or had to expose a whole other race. Why was that decision not easier?

Aoife mumbled something, and sunk deeper into Izuku’s side. 

“What was that?” Katsuki sneered, no doubt thinking Aoife had insulted him. Aoife sat up and spoke slowly, sarcasm coming naturally to her even in a traumatic situation like a kidnapping. 

“I. am. a lesbian. If that’s a problem for you, too bad. We have bigger problems to deal with.” 

Izuku watched the pair of blondes glare at each other while they argued. He was actually relieved, if Katsuki had the energy to fight, he was probably okay. And while he didn’t know Aoife very well he could see the petty argument was helping her calm down is some odd way. 

_He dropped one angry blonde and picked up another… ho boy._

A bump in the road interrupted the scene, and Izuku was almost sent sprawling. The bump also reminded Izuku that he had a promise to keep, and a plan to make. Izuku got up, swaying a little as smooth asphalt gave way to bumpy road under the tires of the vehicle that pulled their prison. He asked Aoife to stay and keep an eye on Katsuki, still afraid the other boy would relapse into drug induced sickness. He began rummaging around the empty wooden crates that littered the inside of the large container. He was maybe through half of the boxes, losing hope fast, when the uneven road sent a vicious jolt through the floor. The vehicle must’ve hit a pretty big bump if it was enough to make Izuku lose his footing entirely, a few boxes even fell over from the shake. He yelled when he hit the rusted floor hard enough to make his teeth rattle. Izuku called back to his fellow captives, 

“Are you guys okay?” He hissed when his leg began to hurt so bad it became not much more than a barely tolerable tingle, he wiggles his leg to try and rid himself of the painful sensation. 

Two uncertain “yeah”s answered his call, so Izuku decided to keep up his search. After flipping over the crate closest to him he almost stopped breathing.

_No way._

He wasn’t this lucky— he was never _this lucky_

An old looking crowbar lay on the floor, half a foot away from him, half covered by a second crate. It was just as rusted as everything else was, but it was a tool! Or even a weapon of Izuku needed it to be. He grabbed it and hurried back to the others. 

Aoife cheered when she saw what Izuku had found, Katsuki seemed to make a dizzy fist pump but he looked as relieved as Izuku felt. Izuku held the crowbar out to Aoife, even with her limp she was the best candidate to hold the weapon, her power up type quirk would make for a fierce combination, and that will hopefully pick up the slack her leg would cost her.

“Wait you want me to be in charge of it?” Aoife looked very concerned as she took the crowbar, but Izuku smiled ruefully and tried to make a joke out of the situation.

“Well Katsuki can’t hold it, and if we follow my plan, I won’t be able to either.”

Aoife tilted her head in confusion before she realized what he meant. 

“Oh my god you really are all animal up there— do you even have a brain or is it just hair?” 

Izuku snorted and walked behind some stacked crates. “I have a plan Aoife, you and Katsuki are in bad shape, so I’ll use my _quirk_ and be your front guard, but if something happens you can swing that crowbar and boost the force with your quirk.” He started tugging the zipper of his hoodie down, mud in the zipper mechanism made the process jankety and gritty. 

Katsuki might’ve had some thoughts about the plan but Aoife cut in. “Zu, you sweet _sweet_ moron, those guys out there probably want to kill us and wear our skins, and you’re gonna go out there, wolf out, _right_ after you just had an amnesia inducing monster change last night? You could get us killed— or you could kill someone else!”

Izuku looked back to the others and grimaced. “If it comes to that… it won’t. I won’t let it happen.”

He switched the topic of his possible loss in sanity as soon as he shifts by directing his attention to Katsuki. “How’re you holding up?”

A groan responded.

“Do you think you can hit the ground moving when we start running?”

A nod and a groan.

“How’s your quirk? You’re dry and warm now right?”

Katsuki put his hand up, set off some tiny pops, and flipped Izuku the bird. 

Izuku clapped his hands together, trying to stave off his impending wave of panic, “Wonderful.”

He retreated further behind the stack of crates, “Okay Aoife fill me in on what you know, you were conscious longer than I was.” 

Aoife sighed and rattled off what she saw. There were three attackers, two men and a woman, one man was huge and insanely strong, the second man was a skinny guy with the mind scream quirk who threatened them with mental torture if they hadn’t taken the sedatives, and the woman who was an unknown variable. All in all Izuku was ready to collapse under the stress of it all. 

Izuku looked at Aoife and tried to convey trust through his look. “We’re gonna make it home, I just need you and Katsuki to cover each other’s backs while I cover everything else okay?”

Aoife looked down at Katsuki who seemed to be dozing. She got up, and limped over to Izuku, talking quietly. “I’m worried about last night, you didn’t see yourself… maybe I should be the one to go in front.” 

“No,” Izuku was firm, “Katsuki thinks I have a hidden quirk, how are we supposed to explain it if you suddenly have the same ’power’”

They were so busy debating who was more qualified for the job that they missed how Katsuki jerked, eavesdropping on the barely audible conversation. 

“I’m going Aoife, it’s our best chance.” Izuku’s time was final, they needed to get everything ready. Aoife finally conceded and left Izuku to undress in privacy. 

 

Or, she would have, had the truck not come to a careening stop. Izuku only had time to pass Aoife his shoes and get his hoodie halfway unzipped when he was thrown to the floor by the halt, the weighty wooden crates crashing on top of him. Izuku screamed when his already injured leg was trapped under a box. The pain raced up his leg and dug serrated claws into vulnerable nerves. Izuku tried to gather his legs under him, but the right leg was under too much weight. He yelled with effort, but his outcry was cut short by a mammoth sized hand snatched him up by the back of his hoodie. The teeth of the metal zipper dug into his neck and choked his scream of pain off as the giant man behind him tugged his leg free forcefully, lightning striking in his limb as it was wrenched. His shoulders were grabbed, the spots returned to his vision with a vengeance while the surrounding colors of rusted walls and pale wooden boxes blurred into watercolor splashes as Izuku’s captor spun him around to face him. 

Square jawed and barrel chested, the titan holding Izuku up cut a clear vision of power lying dormant in thick biceps the size of swollen, overripe grapefruits corded with veiny muscles. His doughy face seemed to quiver, like the man was seconds away from having a breakdown; thick dark eyebrows drawn tight over disgusting eyes the color of pus gleamed with tears. The man’s hair was shorn short and jagged, like he had done the hair cut himself without even a mirror to guide him. Izuku whimpered in terror when the man brought his body closer to his face, burying his hooked nose in the crook of Izuku’s neck. Izuku tried to squirm away, feeling the stark contrast of the man’s cold nose against his pulsepoint, but his scrabbling hands might as well had been tied behind him again for how much good it did. With the new closeness to the kidnapper Izuku could smell the odor rolling off the large man in waves, it was the same kind of smell from the cougar exhibit from the zoo. Wet straw and ammonia. The man choked on a distressed whimper of his own.   
  
“Too young,” Izuku cringed away from the low, whiney baritone of his kidnapper, not liking what his words could mean for him. Bile was a bitter flavor in the back of Izuku’s throat. The man turned around, Izuku swinging around with the momentum like a ragdoll.   
  
Izuku couldn’t see the people behind him, and to talk loud enough to call out to his companions seemed too big of a task for him. All Izuku could do was listen as the thug spoke over past him, holding him out as if to show off his flaws.   
  
“It’s too young, all of ‘em are. You said no young ones, adults only.” He drawled thickly, black lips grimacing, revealing yellowed feline fangs lining the man’s maw. Rotted meat joined the miasma of horrid smells.   
  
A woman’s voice, the slimy sounding one from before, answered. “A little monster is still a monster Kūga. ‘Better to catch them early right? Before they hurt people.”

The man, ‘ _Kūga’,_ let out a wet sniffle, like _he_ was the one in danger. Izuku couldn’t speak, but he tried to convey how scared he was through eye contact, trying to win some sympathy from the person holding him like a kitten being snagged by its scruff. 

The man only cried more, and slammed Izuku down unto the metal floor of the truck bed, a deafening _clang_ flooded Izuku’s ears and his chest felt crushed like a tin can as the air was knocked out of him. But then, the hand came down and locked around his throat. 

Izuku thrashed and bucked against the hand attempting to wring the air from his windpipe and the life from his body, even as the lack oxygen sapped his strength from his limbs and the clarity from his mind. The man above him, the one trying to end his life, wept bitterly, as if his supposed misery was an attempt to apologize for the sin of killing a boy who would never see fifteen years of age.

Foam leaked from the corner of Izuku’s mouth, the froth must have looked quite amusing to the killer above him, the one who accused him of being a monster. Distantly, muffled by the cotton of asphyxiation, was his mother’s voice.

_Hide it Izuku, don’t let people see it Izuku, be a good boy Izuku, be quirkless. Lay low. Don’t show your teeth Izuku._

Rage filled the spaces between desperation and terror. 

Izuku wasn’t ready to die.

A hot tear hit Izuku’s cheek as a ragged sob tore through his attackers chest, and somehow the absurdity of that was enough to power a final buck, Izuku’s spine arched violently, as if something had grabbed him by the rib cage and pulled him up by it. His abdomen left the ground entirely, his weight being pushed onto the back of his neck, and the iron grip on his throat loosened just enough. 

He thought about everything he had ever been through, how badly he wanted to be an adult, a successful hero who didn’t have to cower or be weak. He thought about how he had done his best to be more than what people saw him as, all his best was, and all his best never would be. The nights without power, the days without lunches. The grip on his neck was unforgiving, just cruel force. But Izuku was done being a victim to cruel force.

_Be a good boy Izuku, keep your head down sweetheart, it’ll get better one day, when you can better control yourself I promise things will change._

The spots cleared from Izuku’s eyes, and he had never felt so in control then in that single moment, when he could feel the flesh of his would be killer’s hand parting, giving way to his teeth.

_Things will change._

Blood, hot and coppery filled Izuku’s mouth and bones crunched under the pressure of his bite. The next sound to filter through the cotton was the man’s scream. Izuku bit down harder, grinding his molars together.

_I promise._

* * *

 

Katsuki shook in terror as he watched from ten feet away. The thin waif of a kidnapper standing next to him wasn’t faring much better as his scared violet eyes watched Izuku bite and tear at the flesh of the puma-like man’s hand. Blood was steadily flowing out of the wound and staining Izuku’s skin and clothes. Katsuki wanted to vomit again— Izuku continued to keep his jaw tight, even when the woman who had been holding Aoife at knife point had struck him upside the head with the blunt grip of the sharp blade in an attempt to get the boy to loosen his bite. 

Aoife took the chance that Izuku’s distraction gave her, she stayed on her side but used her arms to brace herself as she shot both legs out in a devastating kick, blue light accompanied by a sickening crunch as the woman’s lower leg bone was broken with indiscriminate kinetic power. Her scream of pain was barely a whisper compared to the screams of the man whose hand was being torn apart. Katsuki let his brain shut down, and let his instincts take over. Arm up, palm out, the smell of sweet nitroglycerin. The familiar tingle in his palm, as easy as breathing.

The blast knocked the thin man into the wall hard enough to knock him clean out. That made three for three. That tiny feral bitch of a foreigner had crippled her attacker, Deku, that fucker, he was still tearing away at the hand that would have strangled him, ignoring the hits from the giant guy he was wounding. Who did he think he was? Some badass? 

Katsuki got to stiff legs, stepped around Aoife, who was using her arms to pull herself up on a box, she was shaking badly; he didn’t give a shit. She was fine, watching the woman who had held her at knife point gasp and cry while holding her crooked leg was a victory. Katsuki walked past the slumped figure of the young man with the mental torture quirk. Somehow seeing the blood on the side of that lowlife’s face is what snapped everything back into real time. Katsuki ran to the left side of the man still trying to pry Deku’s mouth open with one unruined hand, and let his quirk loose in an explosive punch to the man’s rib cage. He crumpled, howling with pain, and Deku finally let his jaw loosen. The bloody appendage falling free. 

Katsuki watched his ex childhood friend gasp for air, and try to spit up blood all at once. The freckled nerd wiped blood from his mouth, the back of his hand smearing dark red across his cheek. Katsuki wanted to look away. He didn’t.

“Come on,” His voice was harsh, he couldn’t look at the dark smears on the other boys face, the mess of red soaked into his red hoodie. Red obscuring freckles and olive skin like a gruesome paint. 

Izuku nodded heavily, and shuffled to his feet, his haste making his steps clumsy. He kept rubbing at his throat absentmindedly, no doubt feeling the phantom grip around it still. Izuku walked past the disgusting giant who was now laying still, though he still shuddered with heaving breaths. 

Aoife picked up the tossed away crowbar, holding it close like it was a child’s toy. When the trio made it to the lazily swinging doors of the storage container the woman, with her snake like eyes, and stringy hair, found her voice once more. 

“ _Monsters!”_ she screamed, still holding the point in her leg where the bone had been snapped like a dry stick. The break was obvious, it hurt to look at.   
  
“Fucking monsters!” spittle flew from her mouth, her fury visible in how her serpentine eyes turned manic and unstable, “I’ll kill every one of your kind! I swear I will! Fucking wolves– fucking monsters!”   
  
Fear wrapped itself around Katsuki’s throat, like a vice meant to kill him. He started to push more urgently, paying no heed to the lingering effects of the drugs in his system or the way Izuku limped now, while Aoife had seemingly forgotten the pain in her leg from earlier, only a small tremor interrupted her near running steps now.

Izuku had stumbled his first few steps, his own leg obviously in pain. Katsuki, still listening to the snake eyed woman’s screamed promises of a painful death, decided the best way to get Izuku to hurry was to help him. Aoife had to help him lower the green haired boy down as fast as possible so he wouldn’t hurt himself further. That’s when Katsuki noticed that aoife was still, somehow, holding onto those damn red shoes. But as soon as all three of them had feet on the ground the woman started to shrilly cry out with even more hate behind her words.  
  
_“I’ll tear you damn wolves apart do you hear me?! I’ll send you to hell you flea bitten bitch– you’ll be a pack of three demons in hell!”_   
  
Katsuki didn’t see the projectile while it was in flight, but Aoife’s scream set his nerves on fire. She hit the ground hard, and Izuku yelled, reaching out for his friend, but Katsuki was already shoving him forward to run, wrenching Aoife up as well. Fear replaced the haze in his limbs, and adrenaline replaced his soreness. They ran hard, not leaving the screaming snake eyed woman behind fast enough.

* * *

  


Yagi Toshinori sat in the passenger seat of his friend’s, Naomasa Tsukachi’s, truck. Staring out the window, enjoying the view of a mist drowned forest as far, lazy drops of rain plopped on to the windshield. The ride had been speckled with conversation but the silence wasn’t awkward in the least. It felt picturesque and full. 

Yagi had been able to catch a bank robber with a gelatinous body quirk with no real issues just earlier that day, and Tsukachi got saved from extra paperwork by giving Yagi a ride to his mountain home. He wanted to spend a weekend in his small cabin, hoping he could calm the fire that rested in his scar tissue for a little while. He had been working too hard lately, and his injury was beginning to get back at him for it. He was about to request the radio be turned on when Tsukachi swore loudly and swerved the truck. Yagi saw Tsukachi swerving to avoid hitting a shape that had suddenly burst from the treeline that hedged the roadside. The truck lost control and Yagi felt the truck slam into the ditch. Though it dug into his stomach cruelly, the seat belt is what kept him from face planting into the dash and getting a concussion.  
  
Tsukachi killed the engine, cursing a little, holding a hand to his forehead, before turning to look behind him and then asking Yagi, “Are you okay?”   
  
Yagi grunted his affirmation, a hand on his side where the sunburst of scars sat like parasites that stung and burned. 

“What happened?” He groaned.

“God— I think we almost hit a dog.”

Tsukachi opened his door to get out and look at the damage done to the truck, but he stopped short and went ramrod stiff. 

“What is it now?” Yagi asked, not able to see what the issue was from where he was sitting, nursing the more than average pain in his side. 

“No— it wasn’t a dog, it’s... kids?” Tsukachi spoke dumbly, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. Yagi didn’t really believe it either, which is why he got out of the car to see for himself. 

There was in fact, three children in the road. Two boys, and a girl. They all looked absolutely filthy. The first child was a spikey ash blonde haired boy who was lying on his side on the gray asphalt looking dazed as he lay in the rain gasping for breath. The second child, another boy who was on his hands and knees, also winded but not nearly as out of breath as the first, had a green mop of loose wet curls and a warm skin tone made ashy by the cold. The girl was shorter than both the boys with white blonde hair and a bloody nose. She was carrying a crowbar like she wanted to hit the first thing she saw with it. She was pacing and limping back and forth with a fury that was _tangible_ .   
  
She snapped her flaming blue gaze to the adults, and Yagi felt a concern for his safety he hadn’t felt since the last time he had landed in the hospital.   
  
“Are y’all blind?! Or just playing for hit and run points?”   
  
Yagi didn’t know how to respond, not that he could have answered, considering the foreign looking, and sounding girl didn’t wait more than two seconds before trying to gather her friends to stand.   
  
“Come on Iz, help me get him up before we’re found,” she looked back at the pair of concerned and confused adults with enough snap in her neck to send her waist length ponytail flying. “Or at least get us out of the road before someone else tries to smear us down the mountain back roads.” she growled lowly, flicking her wet bangs out of her right eye.   
  
Yagi watched the girl’s hands clench and unclench around the crowbar, he saw how her eyes flicked back and forth. She was most certainly scared.

  
The boy, “Iz” Yagi presumed, gave him a nervous once over with emerald eyes before rising to his feet. Yagi’s eyes widened with shock at the mess of dark red on his clothes and skin. The blood kept yagi’s attention while the boy started walking across the asphalt barefoot, shaking some of the moisture out of his hair like a dog.

He mumbled something before speaking louder, “Who has my shoes?”

The girl threw a pair of shoes tied together by the laces at the boy, the strings went across Iz’s neck, the shoes carried their weight against his throat and made the boy choke and wheeze, as he bent backwards a little and almost fell over.  
  
“God damn, Tiny, what’s got you so mad?” the spiky haired boy grumbled from his place on the wet pavement, absently rubbing at a swelling wound on his temple.   
  
The girl started to pace even more, obviously the wrong question had been asked.

“Why am I mad? Well let’s see, I spent the night in the woods and rain, dealt with your grumpy ass, got _kidnapped_ and sedated and then that psycho bitch tried to kill me with a penny!” She fumed and tossed a coin to Iz, a small spark of blue following the coins path as the girl used her quirk.   
  
The green haired boy’s hands had to fly from the half zipped hoodie zipper to catch the coin, the impact must’ve stung a little but if it hurt the boy didn’t complain. His companion was sparking and pacing as fast as her limp would allow. He looked at the coin and frowned.   
  
“This is a five yen piece,”   
  
The girl slowed, not before an azure snake of electricity like energy arced up and down her body. “Oh, my bad,” she seethed, “that psycho _bitch,_ tried to kill me with _five_ pennies.”   
  
The danger in her tone warned Yagi away from trying to correct her. Yagi tried to collect more context clues as he built the situation in his mind. These children were in danger, they knew each other, and so far they didn’t seem majorly injured. During his scan he soon found a similarity between the girl and the boy who seemed to be the group leader. The girl wore a black euro-punk collar that had a dark silver disc hanging from it like a pet's tag. The boy had a similar thing going on, though his medallion like necklace was black iron and shiny silver in some places, and it hung on his exposed chest by a long cord.   
  
“Wait— are you kids in danger?” Tsukachi asked, hand still on his forehead, his eyes thin, as if he had a migraine.   
  
The kid on the ground snorted and sat up. “Nah, we’re just decked out in grime and acting like kidnap victims for the fucking fun of it. What the fuck do you think is happening here?”   
  
Tsukachi squinted and groaned. “Oh no…”   
  
“Oh no? What’s wrong?” Yagi asked, concerned for his friend.   
  
Tsukauchi let his hand fall, only to go up and smash his hat down onto his head. “I’ve got a concussion or something and my quirk is acting up because of it. A sarcastic lie is still a lie and I didn’t pick up on it. My head hit the steering wheel when we went into the ditch, that must’ve done it.” 

Tsukachi _did_ look pretty dazed. Yagi took charge of the situation.   
  
“Children, what happened to you?” The more he observed the three children the more concerned he grew. Keeping his cool was becoming more and more difficult. The girl had bruises around her neck, a bloody nose and injured leg, not to mention she was rubbing at a spot on her chest like it hurt horribly. The boys were ragged and filthy, the green haired young man even had _two_ streaks of blood visible on his face and the side of his head, the rain having not yet washed the red away. 

The boy with freckles stepped forward, one leg threatening to give out, but he still waved the girl to stay back. His shoes were still held in his hands, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to put them on, instead he gripped the laces and held his hand out for the crowbar the girl had been carrying around. 

“Who are you guys?”

Yagi gestured to Tsukachi, “This is my friend, Detective Tsukachi, he works for the police. I’m a secretary at the All Might heroics Agency. We can help you.”

The boy didn’t move, except to flick his intelligent green eyes to Tsukachi. 

“You guys have proof?”

 _Ah. He’s not quick to trust strangers._ Yagi thought, _but by the look of him and his friends, he’s rightfully cautious._

Yagi nodded and explained that his agency entry pass was in his wallet. He wanted to give his past judgement a pat on the back for having a fake ID made for his weak form. 

Tsukachi also told the boy that he could find his detectives badge in the console of the truck. Iz gestured for the girl and the other boy to stay put while he took a few steps forward and held his hand out. “I want to see your ID, after I get yours I’m going to let my friends get the badge, if we don’t like what we see we’re going okay?”

Yagi nodded and slowly reached around to his back pocket, pinned by untrusting green eyes the whole time. Logically, Yagi knew the child in front  of him wasn’t a threat. He still had an hour of time in his hero form, he could easily disarm and contain the children. But he sees how the boy guards his companions, he sees the shake of the child’s hand as he waits for the wallet. These kids were hurt and scared, if letting them feel like they were in control of the situation helped them get into the truck, and to safety, then Yagi knew what he had to do to keep them from running. 

When he finally fished the wallet out of his pocket, he tossed it to the boy, who fumbled to catch it. The second boy, the angry looking one, was the one to go to the truck and find the badge. After they had all of the identification, the three of them huddled around and passed the police badge and false entry ID around, making their individual conclusions. The green haired boy who had taken charge of the situation held his hand out to receive Yagi’s ID card from the angry boy, who gave the card up with a huff and a nod. 

The girl tossed the leather wallet containing Tsukachi’s badge to the freckled boy. “I trust it, but I’ll leave the decision to you, you’ve got a good head for this whole thing.” 

The boy who seemed to be in charge took a deep breath and looked to Yagi.

 “We need help. Some people took us, we don’t know who but they’re back there,“ a vague gesture to the treeline behind the group, “and we need to—“

A monstrous cracking sound tore through the woods not so distantly begins them, Yagi jumped into action.

“Children, get in the back of the truck, and _hold on_ ,  we’ll get you back to safety I swear to you.” Yagi pointed to the camper cap that made up the bed of the truck, and ushered Tsukachi to the front of the vehicle. The children didn’t hesitate to climb in, though the green haired boy had to lift the girl due to her leg injury, and then the other two had to haul him into the truck due to his own injury. Yagi closed the camper cab and hurried to get back in the cab of the truck, Tsukachi was in the driver's seat, and usually Yagi would have advised against a concussed man from driving but Yagi couldn’t drive so it was their only option at the moment. 

Yagi buckles his seatbelt and held onto the handle fastened next to the door frame with a white knuckled grip as the engine came to life.  


* * *

  
  
Izuku held on to the edge of the bare wooden frame of a low shelf as the truck careened for the third time in as many minutes. It had been at least fifteen minutes since the three of them had agreed to seek help from the police officer and his friend but with all the bruises Izuku had gained from their rescue he almost wished he had just chosen to run down the mountain himself. 

The swing of the momentum rent his fingers free of the shelf and he flew back to crash into Katsuki, the blondes shoulder hit Izuku’s chin painfully. Aoife fared no better, she had been flung into the wall and her cry of pain ricocheted sharply in the confining space. Izuku reached out to snag her sleeve, intent on getting the three of them to wedge into the tightest space possible in hopes of lowering their chances of one of them breaking their neck, but a terribly large pothole sent him sprawling across the floor in a heap instead. 

Tires screamed across asphalt, and soon Izuku heard the distant wail of police sirens. Izuku felt Katsuki grab his shoulder just as he reached Aoife, pulling her away from the wall just as the vehicle came to a break neck stop and threw them all backward. Izuku hissed and groaned as a bruise the size of a dinner plate began to take its form on his back. He supposed he preferred the bruises to being killed in the woods though, if only slightly considering how much the ‘rescue’ hurt. 

The doors to the back of the space opened and two paramedics and the thin man from before met them as they stumbled out. Izuku would have fallen to his knees if it weren’t for the woman dressed in paramedic uniform who helped him stand up. He let himself relax incrementally at the idea of being in the safety of an ambulance.

But then a roar shattered the ambulance sirens. Izuku had Aoife by the wrist and Katsuki by the back of his shirt in a second, pressed up against the truck and behind him. Izuku found himself facing the thin man from before, Yagi or something. His hollow blue eyes watched him carefully, Izuku had to fight to keep his gold eyes in check, no matter how they prickled and ached to let their warning through. After a moment of tense silence the thin man heaved a sigh as he turned away to run to find something or someone and Izuku startled at the heavy stench of blood on the so called secretary’s breath. _What was that about?_

Izuku felt an electric current of fear tear down his spine when the lingering smell of blood was washed over with the pungent burn of ammonia and soiled hay, carried by winds that had gotten more aggressive with the next wave of unseasonal storm. That’s when the screams began again, adult screams of the police officers trying and failing to hold of the rancid man whose blood still lingered in Izuku’s mouth. All to quickly, the truck Izuku had his friends hiding behind was wrenched to the side, Aoife’s scream was the last thing Izuku really heard before sound went back to a murmur, like it had when the puma like man had held him down.  
  
Yellow eyes met his own once again, Kūgā was cradling his ruined hand to his chest, but one giant hand was still healthy, and when those deranged eyes locked on Izuku he saw the promise of blood shed. Izuku pushed his friends behind his body harshly, sending them stumbling back as a massive fist came swinging for Izuku. He clenched his eyes shut—

Izuku heard the thunderous sound of impact, but the hit never landed. Izuku opened his eyes and saw the giant silhouette of someone he could never _not_ recognize.

“All Might!”

The hero glanced over his shoulder and smiled down at the trio of children and he boomed with laughter.  
  
“You had me worried there Naomasa! I’m glad I made it in the nick of time! Worry not children, I’ll see to it you’re safe very soon!”

The hero’s hand clenched tighter around the thick wrist of the puma quirked man. Kūgā cried out and tried to paw at the massive hero’s hold with his other, bloodied and bitten hand but it was fruitless. All Might’s smile was resolute, and it was the last thing izuku saw before Kūgā was sent flying.   
  
It was like the whole event was over as soon as the number one hero arrived and incompacitated the largest of the kidnappers. Everything seemed to move too slow, getting treated by paramedics, seeing the police come out of the woods with the two other criminals, the questions the cops asked. Izuku was so mentally drained he didn’t refocus on reality until they were at the police station.   
  
Izuku had never cried so hard in his _life_ like he did when his mother came running into the precinct to hold him close and know he was safe.   
  
“Oh Izuku—“ any other words were lost in the turret of emotions as Izuku wrapped his arms around his mother. His thoughts from being in the trunk, from when he was almost strangled, all of it hit like a hundred tons of cement.   
  
“I love you mom,” the words came with tears and hard heaving gasps that burned in his bruised throat.  

 Inko started to thread her hands through her son’s hair, repeating soft comforts over and over, until the police let them go home.   


* * *

  
  
When the door of the weathered apartment closed, Izuku immediately went to the bathroom. He closed the door and leaned against it for a few seconds, the heft of the past two days feeling like lead weights tied to his wrists. He shed his hoodie and turned the shower on. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and flinched. Izuku’s skin was stained with dirt and blood, it was dry and crusted into his hair. His wounds were well on their way to being healed but the dark smears of dried blood on his face made it look so much worse. Izuku tried to scratch some of the blood off his chest from when he bit the kidnappers hand, but it barely did anything. He sighed and finished undressing so he could take the warmest shower the half dead water heater would allow.   
  
His still open wounds burned when the water hit them, the soap was even less forgiving, but Izuku felt like he was operating on autopilot, everything was mechanical and practiced as he watched ruddy colored water and bits of leaves and sticks circle the drain.   
  
By the time Izuku got to using his washrag to scrub his attackers blood out of his skin, he started thinking about what happened, about the rage that had overtaken him. His fist closed around his pendant in a death grip as that anger started to heat his blood again.   
  
_“I’ll kill you all! Fucking wolves— you’ll be a pack of three demons in hell!”_

There was only one way to take that.  The woman, no the whole group of kidnappers had known what he was, what aoife was, Katsuki must have just been lumped in with them, an assumed werewolf.   
  
_“Fucking_ ** _monsters_** _”_  
  
Is that how humans who knew about his kind thought of them? God _— ‘his kind’._ He’d always known he was different, he’d have to be stupid to not realize it, he turned into a large wolf on his own whim, that wasn’t normal for a quirkless person. But being surrounded by people with all these insane abilities for his whole life, he’d never thought of himself as inhuman. But now? Now, he found himself in an ‘us vs. them’ situation. Wolves against eople willing to hunt down and kill teenagers. Wolves against Hunters.  
  
So now there were two kinds of people who’d rather see him dead, the assholes who preach against quirkless people, and now a bunch of psychopaths who like to kidnap preternaturals. What really bothered him was that he hadn’t known about any of it, surely his mother would have _warned_ him if she knew something like this was a possibility.   
  
What if she had known? What if she had just… kept it from him?   
  
The water went cold, Izuku turned the faucet off, and parted the yellowed shower curtain to get to his towel.   
  
Izuku stepped out of his room wearing jeans, a black t-shirt with “flannel shirt” written on it in white with his old All Might hoodie in his hands along with his old fifth grade soccer team duffle bag.  
  
Inko practically jumped away from the stove, a cup of tea in her hands. “Izuku I made tea, it might help you feel…” her words drifted off as she saw how he was dressed. “You’re not going somewhere are you? After everything that happened, I really don’t think—”

“I want some answers mom.” Izuku set his bag down by the couch, and took a seat. His hands wouldn’t stop tracing the design of his pendants scene, his fingers made nervous patterns along the cliff edge, along the storm cloud. “Why did they come for me? They knew what I was, but  want to know if you knew this was a possibility.”  
  
Inko seemed to shed her timidness, and trade it for an air of sharpness.   
“Are you accusing me of something Izuku?”   
  
Izuku gripped his hoodie harshly, “I just want to know if there’s a reason I’ve never been warned about werewolf killing maniacs.” his tone was even, he didn’t want to yell at his mother, he respected her too much but she was starting to get into her “don’t question me Izuku Midoriya, because I know better than you, talk about it anymore and i’ll ground you until you’re grandchildren are old” tone. It was always like this when he tried to ask questions about anything his mother didn’t like. Any topic from why he couldn’t use his lycanthropy to pass as a quirked person to who his dad was, all of them were off limits, and he knew what he was asking was more than toeing the line, he might as well be long jumping into the ‘no go zone’. The feeling of bones splintering under his teeth were still fresh in his memory, he wanted to know where he stood in the worlds eyes.

Inko set the cup she was holding down, and sighed. “We haven’t had hunters in Japan for decades, I didn’t want to make you paranoid over something that had seemingly migrated out of the country.”  
  
Izuku’s eyebrows furrowed, “We? Who’s we?”   
  
Inko sat down, her eyes looked so tired. “Come on now Izuku, you know we’re not the only werewolves in Japan, or the world. It’s just wolves who need to look out for trouble either…”   
  
Oh for the love of whatever god was listening to this conversation, was he going to get any _answers_ tonight _,_ or just more questions?   
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” his voice was rising in volume now, his fourteen years of having his questions shut down starting to boil over.   
  
“I already told you,” His mother’s voice was starting to heat up too, not nearly as much as Izuku’s but enough to warn him he was about to reach trouble. But for once, he kept digging.   
“I’d much rather be paranoid than dead in a shallow grave!”   
  
Inko stood up, “Izuku don’t even joke like that-”   
  
“I’m not joking!” Izuku scowled, he stood as well, sick of his mother beating around the bush.   
“I could have _died,_ I almost did! One of those psychopaths held me down by my neck and tried to strangle me! I deserve to know when I’m in danger! I’m not a little kid anymore Mom! I can’t just go along with what you say anymore…” he was close to tears, and he was mad about it. Shouldn’t he be past tears at this point?   
  
His mother looked absolutely furious. “Izuku I am your mother, everything I’ve done is to protect us- to protect _you!”_ she was shaking now, her eyes lit with a halo of predatory yellow.   
  
Izuku swiped at his burning gold eyes and before he knew it, his fingers, tipped with long black nails were cutting five deep gashes into the blue fabric of the couch.   
“ I don’t want your protection right now! I want to come out with lycanthropy as my quirk! I want be an equal for once! I don’t want to get the crap kicked out of me anymore and I definitely don’t want to live my life being ashamed of what I am just because you’re a coward!”   
  
His mother drew back like she had been slapped. Izuku snatched up his duffle bag and took off, ignoring his mother’s scream for him to come back. He snatched his shoes up by their laces and threw the door open. His bare feet almost slipped on rain slick stairs as he took the creaking hazards two at a time. If his mother had called for him a second time his heart was pounding too loudly in his ears to hear it.   


* * *

 

Izuku ran hard and fast until he reached a main road, he could feel his heart slamming away at the prison of his rib cage, wanting to change and run _faster_ so badly it hurt. But he had to keep himself in check, he needed to find Katsuki. 

Finding the house of his childhood friend was easy, what was shocking was that Katsuki was sitting on his porch, looking… almost heartsick. Izuku decided to just throw caution to the wind and sit next to his… eugh… without preamble.   
  
“‘The hell are you doing here?” Katsuki growled, sour, like always.   
  
“Got into a fight with my mom. I need a place to crash.” Izuku wasn’t in the mood to go back and forth over it.   
  
“Well so do I, lost my keys in the woods, parents are in france for a photoshoot, they’ll be home in two days but i had to get a ride from Tiny and her family of lunatics.”   
Izuku frowned, so that’s why he looked so sad. Izuku had gotten a hug and a shower at least, Katsuki still had the last two days worth of grime on him, and his parents weren’t here to offer any kind of support.   
  
“I’m sorry…” Izuku tried to touch Katsuki’s arm but the blonde jerked away.   
  
“It’s whatever. I’ll probably just end up getting yelled at when they get home anyway. Tiny gave me her address, but I just want to sleep in my own bed.”   
  
Izuku didn’t like how quiet Katsuki was being. “Give me the address, the sooner we get there the sooner we can sleep. I hate to impose but I’ve got nowhere else to go at the moment.”   
  
Katsuki nodded, still looking distracted, he tossed a wadded up piece of paper to Izuku without any kind of enthusiasm. He took it, and unfolded it.

 

“Dang, this is in the tourist part of the city, it’ll be a thirty five, maybe forty minute walk.”

 

Katsuki shrugged and got up. Izuku didn’t miss how dazed he still seemed, maybe it was shock, maybe it was something else. They started walking in the direction of the poorly written address. Mental note, help Aoife with her kanji characters.

 

“Deku?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Katsuki didn’t look up from the sidewalk.

 

“Did your fight with your old lady have to do with, you know,” he made a dismissive gesture towards his eyes, “that?”

 

Izuku jolted, immediately looking for a reflective surface, needing to check if his eyes were still panic yellow. Katsuki shoved his shoulder with an angry grunt, making Izuku stumble a little.

 

“Your freaky eyes are fine for now nerd, regular nasty green, now answer me.”

 

Izuku sighed, could he go thirty minutes today without being probed for answers?

 

“Yeah,” he gave in, “I told mom I wanted to use my quirk freely, she got mad, and I really didn’t handle it well.” It wasn’t a lie, well not really.

 

Katsuki snorted. “You think I’m still gonna believe it’s a quirk after today?”

 

Izuku cringed. “Please Katsuki, I’m all out of answers for today, don’t make me have this conversation yet.”

 

The only answer he got was the sound of aluminum skittering across the sidewalk was his walking buddy kicked a can.

* * *

 

Yagi Toshinori was absolutely exhausted, he was on his way to crash at Tsukauchi’s house for the Next few hours before night fell, a bag of frozen dinners in his hand. Paperwork had gone at a snail’s pace tonight, he was too busy thinking about the kids they’d saved to really focus on the report. More _one_ of the kids. The boy with messy hair and freckles, the one who had acted like a leader for the other two children. Toshinori hadn’t missed how the young man had pushed his friends behind himself during the villains second attempted attack. He had true potential- 

 

“Deku I swear to god if you got us lost I’ll rearrange your face!”

 

“Chill out would you? We’re not lost, Aoife is just horrible at giving directions.”  


Yagi peeked around the corner and gaped as _two_ of the three children he _just_ sent home. One, the plain faced boy with freckles, looked fresher— _clean_ at least. But the blond still looked haggard.

 

They argued a little more before the plain faced one bowed out of the argument to look at street signs. Yagi’s brow furrowed, what are those boys doing out? Shouldn’t they be at home resting? His eyes caught the duffle bag slung over the freckled boys’ shoulders— green eyes were watching him.   
  
The thin man raised a hesitant hand in greeting, but the boy didn’t move, his stock stillness reminded him of an animal watching for danger. The blond started to holler for his friends attention.   
  
“Deku? Hey Deku? Izuku!”   
  
The last attempt made the boy jerk, his head moved towards the call, but his eyes didn’t follow the movement until a second later when the blond set his hand on his friend's shoulder. Yagi was about to try and approach the pair of boys, but a call from the road cut him off once more.   
  
A small girl- no, that was the girl from earlier, was hanging out of the window of a navy blue SUV. It was definitely the same girl he saved along with the boys, the long white blonde braid that streamed behind her was a dead giveaway. The car pulled over, and almost all the doors opened as a short, burly man with snowy white hair tied in a bun and a well kept beard ran around the length of the car to open the passenger door and help a heavily pregnant woman with wild, tight barrel curls of voluminous ginger hair get to her feet. The girl soon joined her parents in checking on the boys. She didn’t hesitate to throw herself at the boys and hug them close.   
  
“What the hell are you guys doing out here?” she asked, checking her friends for injury.   
  
The response from either boy was too quiet to be heard, but the woman looked concerned, she gave each boy a strong motherly hug from either side, the boys were very careful to not bump her stomach. The sight confused Yagi even more, what was going on?   
  
The father, a very burly man, seemed to receive a retelling from his wife, though she had to bend a little to be able to whisper to him. He stood straight, like he couldn’t believe what he was told. He was quick to put his hands on their shoulders, and gesture to the car, a warm welcome if they chose to take it. Two little kids with their mothers corkscrew curls of strawberry blonde stuck their heads out of the car’s window, reaching twin hands out towards their father, who after showing the boys where to sit in the family sized car too those little hands and pressed a kiss to each palm. The children giggled and ducked back into the car. Yagi felt his heart warm at the show. His gut said the boys were safe, the question of why they weren’t home could wait, for now the children needed rest. 

 

His phone started to ring, he was quick to answer it. 

 

“Hello Tsukachi,”

 

_“I was just calling to see if you still wanted me to pull the records of the kids from earlier.”_

 

Yagi watched the car pull into the road.

 

“Actually, just one. The one named Izuku.”

  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Uh oh, that’s not good now is it?


End file.
